Turnstone Biologics (“Turnstone”), a privately held clinical stage biotech company, is developing breakthrough cancer immunotherapies by advancing two leading and complementary platforms that drive innate and adaptive tumor immunity, to provide benefit to the millions of cancer patients underserved by current treatment options. Turnstone’s proprietary vaccinia virus platform is engineered to drive coordinated immune activation, potent viral activity, and local expression of encoded therapeutics. The innovative TIL cell therapy platform leverages clinically validated treatment protocols and has been specifically designed to extend beyond the use of bulk TILs to enrich for the most relevant T-cells for tumor eradication, preserving broad antigen diversity and minimizing time to treatment for patients. The Company has an ongoing Phase 1/2a trial in solid tumors (RAPTOR) for its leading oncolytic virus candidate, RIVAL-01, and is expecting to file an IND for the lead TIL therapy candidate, TIDAL-01, in 2021.
At Turnstone, the science drives decision-making and our therapeutics are designed with the patient foremost in mind. We continue to build a world-class, high-performing company that embraces being a learning organization with a sense of urgency. Imagine coming to work every day where over-communication, transparency, teaching, listening, asking, thinking, working hard, and having fun are normal – actually, expected? Imagine having a coach, mentor, peers, and partners where candid feedback, self-improvement, risk taking, failing, learning from that failing, and succeeding thereafter are what we call ‘another day at Turnstone’? If you are a passionate person, and our science excites you – this opportunity may be for you.
Turnstone Biologics is seeking a Scientist/Senior Scientist to play a key role in the design, execution, and analysis of immunological experiments to further the development of Turnstone Biologics’ growing pipeline of T cell products. This is an exciting opportunity to work along side senior researchers and project teams to perform discovery and development research that will ultimately create new medicines for cancer patients.
What would the role be like?
Turnstone’s T Cell therapy technology is based around an exciting new Selected-TIL process that revolutionizes the generation of tumour targeted T cells for adoptive cell therapy. Your role will be to join a team of immunologists and molecular biologists who invent and develop these next gen T cell products for preclinical and clinical evaluation. There will be additional opportunities to continually refine the technology and manufacturing processes for this class defining therapy. If you have experience with T cell manipulation, engineering and culture then this opportunity may be just what you are looking for.
You will work along side senior researchers and supporting technical colleagues within project teams at our state of the art facilities in San Diego and participate in designing and executing cell-based human immunology studies following established laboratory standard operating procedures (SOPs). We have an open, transparent and dynamic culture that embraces scientific excellence, integrity, urgency, partnerships with key stakeholders and continuous learning/improvements.
What’s in it for you?
In this role, you will have the opportunity to develop your ability to think both strategically and drive fast-paced execution. With our company size and growth we will give you plenty of opportunities for you to be an inspirational and collaborative co-functional leader. Passionate about being a part of a critical function of a growing company and continuous learning? We will have plenty of that for you!
We are in the early stages of building strategies, structures and process so this role will be busy and expanding. We also have opportunities for you to be a mentor to other team members. You would have the opportunity to create something new and grow your career right along with the company.
The Responsibilities include the following:
- Design and execution of in vitro and in vivo studies to understand T cell activity, function, cell state and phenotype from human and rodent tissues
- Participate individually or as part of project teams to schedule and manage complex multi-disciplinary experiments including data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
- Prepare data/figures and presentations to communicate results from experiments to senior research staff
- Generate study reports in a timely manner
- Write and review SOPs and overseeing training for team members
- Contribute to a team-centric culture that embraces scientific excellence, integrity, and urgency
How do you know if you’re the right fit?
- Ph.D. in Immunology/Microbiology/Biochemistry (research primarily focused in immunology) with post graduate experience or and/or biotech or pharmaceutical industry experience
· This role will be positioned out of our new San Diego site
- Deep knowledge and experience in T cell function/differentiation/signaling/regulation, metabolism/phenotypic analysis of inhibitory and costimulatory targets and pathways and/or neoantigen biology and vaccines is highly preferred.
- Robust understanding of innate and adaptive immune systems is required
- An expert knowledge of immune based in vitro assays, flow cytometry and common molecular techniques such as cell based and biochemical assays to interrogate the immunological mileu of human blood tissue or tumour samples, including ICS, ELISpot assay, ELISA, RNA seq
- T-cell sorting / human experience
- Experience with T cell engineering highly preferred
- Experience studying T cell metabolism and cell state highly preferred
Turnstone Biologics welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process. We thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those selected will be invited for an interview.