Senior Scientist – Lentiviral Vector Upstream Process Development (Lentiviral Vector)

Location: Spring House, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Company

Johnson & Johnson MedTech develops healthcare solutions across Innovative Medicine and MedTech.

What you will do

• Design, execute, and provide scientific guidance for upstream process development studies for lentiviral therapeutic products.
• Run cell culture experiments using shake flasks, bench-scale bioreactors, and automated high-throughput systems.
• Improve lentiviral process productivity, quality, manufacturability, robustness, and development efficiency.
• Support technology transfer to manufacturing sites, commercial manufacturing investigations, and product life cycle management.
• Apply statistical experimental design, data analytics, online monitoring, and visualization tools to strengthen process understanding.
• Collaborate with downstream, analytical, formulation, modeling, and automation functions; mentor junior scientists and author technical and regulatory-supporting documents.

Requirements

• PhD in Chemical Engineering, Biochemical Engineering, Biological Sciences, Biotechnology, or a related field with 2+ years of relevant experience, or BS/MS with 4–6 years of relevant experience.
• Experience developing processes for viral-based products and mammalian cell culture processes for biologics, cell and gene therapy, RNA therapeutics, or related viral-vector modalities.
• Hands-on experience with cell culture, bioreactor operation, media optimization, process monitoring, and process scale-up.
• Strong data analysis, experimental design, technical documentation, written communication, and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to independently design, execute, interpret, and communicate complex studies in cross-functional teams.
• Occasional weekend work and up to 10% domestic and international travel may be required.

Nice to have

• Experience transferring bioprocesses to clinical or commercial GMP manufacturing.
• Experience with JMP, MiniTab, Python, Spotfire, or similar data analysis and visualization platforms.
• Knowledge of emerging upstream technologies that improve process robustness and development efficiency.

Culture & Benefits

• Inclusive work environment centered on individual dignity, diversity, and merit.
• Opportunity to contribute to cell therapy and CAR-T programs across early- and clinical-stage development.
• Cross-functional collaboration across process development, manufacturing, analytics, formulation, modeling, and automation.
• Scientific leadership opportunities across programs and workstreams.