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Senior Scientist, Host-Microbiome Research, USA

Janssen Research & Development, LLC., a member of the J&J Family of Companies, is recruiting for Senior Scientist, Host-Microbiome Research with primary location in Cambridge, MA, USA.
The Senior Scientist will function as a key part of the Janssen Human Microbiome Institute (JHMI) within the World Without Disease Accelerator. The Senior Scientist will drive a number of translational microbiome research projects and collaborations across the organization. In particular, you will focus on in-human discovery of crosstalk between microbiome and the host immune system towards microbiome products that can accelerate or leverage our product portfolio towards prevention, interception and cure of disease.  You will Support JHMI portfolio programs, by leveraging expertise in immunology and microbiome across the existing and future portfolio projects and use scientific expertise to support the operational and management teams in strategy development and decision making.
In this exciting role, you will:
  • Design, initiate and lead in-human microbiome studies to validate the crosstalk between microbiome and the immune system, elucidate the mechanisms underlying that crosstalk.  This will include:
    • Lead, as technical expert, outsourced in-human discovery efforts with industry and academic collaborators. Manage the science and act as a main contact for all internal & external stakeholders involved in these studies and its data analysis.
    • Collect, analyze and interpret in-human discovery data to identify microbial features correlative and predictive for qualifying immune signatures.
    • Conduct critical analysis of research results and potential to leverage other disease focus areas in the organization. Define new and original research hypotheses and propose critical experiments necessary to support these hypotheses.
  • Define validation studies for microbiome causality through human interventional studies and Engage with academic and industrial key partners, define strategic studies, manage contracts, follow up on results, and evaluate data towards mechanistically understanding how altering the microbiome through intervention or diet impacts the inflammasome/immune tone and if necessary, organize collection of samples and manage execution of the research.
  • Expand the organizational knowledge base and maintain state-of-the-art knowledge in the microbiome and immunotherapy areas, stay current on published literature, and introduce this know-how to the organization as needed.  You will also:
    • Identify and establish open communication channels with the leading academic and industry researchers as relevant to our programs.
    • Report and present key learnings, progress and project status to team members within JHMI and leadership across the organization on a  frequent basis.

Qualifications

  • A PhD in Immunology or Microbiology is required.
  • Demonstrated experience in both (Immunology and Microbiology) research fields are highly preferred.
  • A minimum 3 years’ post doc experience OR 3 years’ industry research experience in pharmaceutical or biopharma is required
  • Hands on research experience is required
  • Experience in microbe-host interactions is highly preferred
  • Effective project and people management skills are required
  • Demonstrated entrepreneurial and creative problem solving skills are highly preferred
  • Excellent communication skills are required.
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