Senior Associate Scientist, Cell Culture

WHY PATIENTS NEED YOU

Pfizer’s purpose is to deliver breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Research and Development is at the heart of fulfilling Pfizer’s purpose as we work to translate advanced science and technologies into the therapies and vaccines that matter most. Whether you are in the discovery sciences, ensuring drug safety and efficacy or supporting clinical trials, you will apply cutting edge design and process development capabilities to accelerate and bring the best in class medicines to patients around the world.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Cell Culture Technologies Team (CCTT) in Clinical Immunology & High-throughput Operations (CIHO) provides high-quality cultured eukaryotic cells to various laboratories within Pfizer Vaccines Research and Development (VRD) to support the research and development of our extensive vaccines pipeline. As a Senior Associate Scientist, you will be at the center of our operations and you’ll find that everything we do, every day, is in line with an unwavering commitment to quality. The responsibilities of this position include but are not limited to, maintaining laboratory operations, preparation, and qualification of cell culture reagents, loading results into LIMS, supplying different types of adherents and/or suspension cell lines for cell-based assays, and improving cell production processes to accommodate clinical and developmental cell demands with proper documentation. The position involves documentation authoring and performing other tasks as assigned, related to CIHO bioassays. Your skills and expertise will ensure that all work is to be done in a compliant manner according to relevant Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) guidelines and Good Lab Practices cGLP and/or Good Manufacturing Practices (part of GxP) cGMP guidelines. As an integral member of the dynamic team, the incumbent must have a strong, positive work ethic and be highly collaborative with the other group members. This position interacts and collaborates with laboratory analysts who work outside of the CCTT, as well as other CCTT laboratory analysts and leadership.

Your significant experience of applying knowledge of principles, concepts, and practices of the discipline will make you a critical member of the team. You are proactive in contributing to all team discussions and creating an environment of collaboration.

It is your hard work and focus that will help in making Pfizer ready to achieve new milestones and help patients across the globe.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Satisfactorily completes all cGLP (current Good Laboratory Practices) and safety training in conformance with requirements.

• Prioritize and organize own work to meet project task deadlines.

• Contribute to achievement of immediate work group goals and collaborate with other team members.

• Complete required documentation for laboratory work. This includes information and data organization/review.

• Review documentation associated with protocols and SOPs, including data generation / archiving, SOP and reports writing / review as assigned by the supervisor.

• After proficiency is demonstrated and experience is obtained, the incumbent may be asked to train, or assist in the training, of other new analysts on protocol(s).

• Provide input in study design and/or perform experiments for improvement, qualification, and QC of cell lines and clinical serology functional bioassays after discussion with supervisor.

• Correspond with assay developmental personnel on clinical study objectives and cell output schedule.

• Present operational and experimental results at group meetings and project meetings. Write monthly progress report if applicable.

• Interact with external vendors to obtain quotes, and purchase reagents for clinical testing where applicable following discussion with supervisor.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's Degree in life science (e.g. biology, cell biology, immunology, virology, microbiology) or bioengineering/biomedical engineering with at least 3 years of experience or MA/MS degree with at least 1-2 years of laboratory experience in cell culture.

• Basic laboratory skills in mammalian cell culture or cell-based assays are strongly desired.

• Hands-on experience with sterile technique, pipetting, performing simple calculations, typing, basic problem-solving is strongly desired.

• Ability to use appropriate software to perform data analysis.

• Proficiency with personal computers, including word processing, Excel, PowerPoint, and relevant scientific software.

• Capacity to work effectively in a team-oriented environment on several research programs si