SR Scientist, Antibody Therapeutics Lead
Description
As an employee of Boehringer Ingelheim, you will actively contribute to the discovery, development, and delivery of our products to our patients and customers. Our global presence provides opportunity for all employees to collaborate internationally, offering visibility and opportunity to directly contribute to the companies' success. We realize that our strength and competitive advantage lie with our people. We support our employees in several ways to foster a healthy working environment, meaningful work, mobility, networking, and work-life balance. Our competitive compensation and benefit programs reflect Boehringer Ingelheim's high regard for our employees.
The Senior Scientist contributes to the optimization of therapeutic antibodies in their transition from antibody lead to drug candidate ready for entry into Development by planing and executing the research needed to deliver optimized therapeutic antibody candidates that best fit the target product profile. This work includes production and characterization of monoclonal antibodies against therapeutic targets for new therapeutic concepts. The position works closely with other teams within New Biological Entities and other functions within the Research and Development organizations to achieve project deliverables. In addition, the Senior Scientist brings new technologies for the optimization, production and characterization of antibodies to the attention of the team while supporting activities with external collaborators and upholding and reinforcing governance and processes in the context of the projects.
Duties & Responsibilities
- Plans and executes laboratory work to produce and characterize therapeutic antibodies for new therapeutic concepts.
- Synthesizes data, generates hypotheses, and defines next steps independently.
- Maintains project progression aligned to agreed priorities and timelines.
- Leads and coordinates junior scientists and technicians contributing to antibody characterization.
- Completes laboratory documentation independently following Boehringer Ingelheim SOP standards.
- Builds a learning culture that drives scientific excellence.
- Stays current on relevant literature and participates in scientific conferences to bring forward new ideas and approaches.
- Serves as a scientific and technical reference within their area of expertise, including training of scientists and technicians.
- Leads activities with internal and external collaborators to deliver therapeutic antibodies that meet project specifications.
- Ensures productive, professional collaboration with aligned priorities and clear timelines.
- Prepares clear technical reports and presentations to communicate progress to peers, supervisors, and Global Innovation teams.
- Presents and defends scientific work in meetings and contributes to project‑related topics across New Biological Entities and Global Innovation.
- Supports timely submission of patents related to project deliverables.
Requirements
- Doctoral degree (PhD) in medical, veterinary, or biological fields with 5 years of experience, or a Master’s degree with 10 years of experience.
- Understanding of therapeutic antibody characterization, including biological function and biophysical properties.
- Knowledge of technologies used to optimize, produce, and characterize antibodies.
- Understanding of adjacent scientific fields, including antibody generation, structural biology, and proteomics.
- Ability to focus on key project deliverables and ensure timely milestone achievement.
- Strong interpersonal skills to collaborate effectively across Global Innovation.
- Demonstrates flexibility, adaptability, accountability, and a positive, proactive attitude.
- Willingness to travel internationally.
- Experience working under biosafety level 2 or higher.
- Proven research record demonstrated through peer‑reviewed publications.
Eligibility Requirements:
- Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without restriction.
- Must be willing to take a drug test and post-offer physical (if required).
- Must be 18 years of age or older.
Desired Skills, Experience and Abilities
- Design, execute, and clearly communicate analytical characterization of biotherapeutics, including monoclonal antibodies and other protein-based modalities as part of a therapeutic drug research and development pipeline.
- Specific expertise in one or more of the following: intact mass analysis, peptide mapping, and post-translational modifications (PTM) analysis.
- Lead and execute characterization activities, with an emphasis on intact-mass LC-MS technique to elucidate critical quality attributes such as charge variants, size variants, and post-translational modifications of biotherapeutics.
- Provide analytical support for cross-functional teams, including formulation development, upstream/downstream process development, and manufacturing to investigate and solve biotherapeutic development challenges.
- Preparing and analyzing biotherapeutic materials, maintaining and calibrating mass spectrometry instruments, and interpreting complex data sets.
- Independently conduct sample preparation and LC-MS analyses in compliance with SOPs, and document experimental procedures and results in electronic laboratory notebook (ELN).
- Help automate data collection, reporting, and visualization using tools such as Excel or basic scripting. Experience with scientific programming in Python or R is a plus.
- Proficiency in operating mass spectrometers, data analysis software, and sample preparation, strong analytical and problem-solving skills, and the ability to work independently while contributing effectively to a team. Provide subject matter expertise and communicate results at internal meetings.
- Labeling approaches that include amide hydrogen deuterium exchange (HDX).
- 3 to 5 years of hands-on mass spectrometry instrument operation.