Upstream Principal Scientist, Vector Biology (Viral Vector)

Location: Onsite in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Applicants must already be authorized to work in the United States and complete Form I-9 and E-Verify verification.

Salary: $146,410–$192,164 USD base pay per year, with performance-based bonus and/or equity available for eligible roles.

Company

Global biotechnology organization developing cell and gene therapies, including autologous, allogeneic, and in-vivo platforms such as CAR-T, TCR-T, and NK cell therapies.

What you will do

• Establish seed train strategies from shake flask through bench-scale bioreactors and define scalable cell culture conditions and operating ranges.
• Design and optimize lentiviral vector constructs, including plasmid architecture, packaging systems, promoters, transgenes, and transfer vectors.
• Develop transient transfection and stable producer cell line workflows to improve vector yield, quality attributes, and process robustness.
• Optimize media, feeding strategies, bioreactor control, and critical process parameters for scale-up to 40 L and beyond.
• Integrate upstream decisions with clarification, chromatography, tangential flow filtration, harvest conditions, and other downstream requirements.
• Lead early process development studies, DoE, risk assessments, technical reporting, and cross-functional recommendations supporting process lock, comparability, technology transfer, and IND-enabling programs.

Requirements

• MS degree with 10+ years of experience or PhD with approximately 5–8+ years of progressive industry experience in bioengineering, cell biology, chemical engineering, or a related discipline.
• Hands-on experience in viral vector production, upstream process development, and characterization across multiple development scales.
• Strong experience with mammalian suspension cell culture, molecular biology, viral vector construct engineering, and bioreactor operations; experience up to 50 L is preferred.
• Experience applying Design of Experiments, multivariate data analysis, and risk-based decision frameworks to early process development.
• Working knowledge of downstream processing, including harvest, clarification, affinity and ion-exchange chromatography, and tangential flow filtration.
• Ability to independently design complex experiments, maintain rigorous electronic laboratory records, communicate technical findings, and work within BSL-2 requirements.

Culture & Benefits

• Permanent full-time employees receive medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) retirement plan with a company match that vests fully on day one.
• Eight weeks of paid parental leave after three months of employment.
• Paid vacation, personal and sick time, floating holidays, and eleven company holidays.
• Additional benefits include flexible spending and health savings accounts, disability coverage, life insurance, commuter benefits, family-care resources, and well-being programs.