About Us:

Founded in 2017 by scientists from Harvard Medical School and UCSF, Autonomous Therapeutics is developing the next generation of nucleic acid medicines for difficult-to-treat infectious disease and oncology indications.

Our platform fuses synthetic biology, chemistry, and therapeutic engineering to achieve a simple goal: target-activated medicines that only act in diseased cells. Imagine a chemotherapy that is programmed to avoid your healthy cells.

You would join a team of 25 PhD scientists and engineers across synthetic biology, synthetic chemistry, immunology, cell biology, in vivo biology, and AI in our 20,000 sq ft R&D facility outside Washington, D.C.

The Role:

We are looking for an exceptional and hands-on cancer biologist, immunologist, or cell biologist to help develop first-in-class precision therapeutic candidates that are discovered entirely in-house.

This is a hands-on role for a broadly trained scientist who is skilled at the interface between in vitro and in vivo biology.

The ideal candidate is an outstanding experimental biologist who can design rigorous cell-based, ex vivo, and in vivo studies. You will use those studies to interpret biological mechanism and to drive critical study-design and candidate-advancement decisions.

You will work closely with our immunology, cell biology, and in vivo biology teams to determine whether our first-in-class therapeutic candidates are potent, selective, mechanistically compelling, and ready to advance into efficacy and late-stage preclinical studies.

You will report directly to the Head of Preclinical Biology and the President of R&D.

About You:

You have a PhD in Cancer Biology, Immunology, Virology, Cell Biology, Pharmacology, or a related field, with demonstrated expertise in both in vitro and in vivo biology. A strong publication record is highly valued.

You also have 5+ years of experience, PhD work included, with direct in vivo biology experience and demonstrated expertise in 1 or more of the following:

Cancer Biology:
Experience studying cancer cell biology, tumor signaling, metastasis, stress responses, apoptosis, innate immune activation, tumor microenvironment biology, or mechanisms of therapeutic response and resistance.

Immunology / Immuno-Oncology:
Experience with immune-cell biology, tumor immunology, cytokine biology, interferon biology, T cell biology, myeloid biology, innate immunity, immune activation, immunosuppression, or immunotherapy mechanisms.

Cell-Based Assays & Candidate Screening:
Strong ability to design, optimize, validate, and interpret cell-based assays to evaluate therapeutic candidates. Relevant assay experience may include viability, proliferation, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, reporter assays, cytokine assays, co-culture systems, immune activation assays, flow cytometry, imaging, qPCR, ELISA / MSD, or high-throughput screening.

In Vivo Biology / Pharmacology:
Hands-on or study-lead experience designing, executing, analyzing, or interpreting in vivo studies to evaluate therapeutic candidates. Relevant experience may include tumor models, infectious disease models, immune/pharmacodynamic readouts, efficacy studies, tolerability/toxicity observations, tissue collection strategies, biodistribution, PK/PD, or biomarker-driven study design.

In Vitro–In Vivo Translation:
Demonstrated ability to connect cell-based and ex vivo findings to in vivo study design, efficacy readouts, pharmacodynamic biomarkers, biodistribution, toxicity, mechanism-of-action hypotheses, and candidate prioritization.

Therapeutic Development:
Experience evaluating novel therapeutic modalities, including nucleic acid medicines, biologics, immunotherapies, cell therapies, antibodies, small molecules, or targeted cancer therapies.

We are especially interested in candidates who have the scientific breadth to move between mechanistic cell biology, therapeutic candidate screening, and in vivo study interpretation. You may come from an immunology, cancer biology, cell biology, or translational biology background, but you must have direct experience using in vivo studies to evaluate biological hypotheses or therapeutic candidates.

Ultimately, your specific field is less important than your scientific judgment, experimental rigor, and ability to design decisive experiments that help us test, prioritize, and advance new medicines.

Nice to Have

• Experience with primary immune cells, PBMCs, organoids, spheroids, co-culture systems, or other translational assay systems.
• Experience with flow cytometry panel design, immune phenotyping, cytokine profiling, or functional immune assays.
• Deep experience with oncology efficacy models, infectious disease efficacy models, PK/PD studies, biodistribution studies, or biomarker-driven in vivo pharmacology.
• Experience with high-throughput screening, automation, assay miniaturization, or quantitative image-based assays.
• Familiarity with nucleic acid therapeutics, RNA biology, synthetic biology, or targeted delivery platforms.

What You’ll Do

• Design, perform, and analyze in vitro and ex vivo studies to evaluate novel therapeutic candidates.
• Design, perform, and analyze in vivo studies in collaboration with the in vivo biology team.
• Develop and optimize assays for potency, selectivity, mechanism of action, immune activation, cytotoxicity, pharmacodynamic activity, and therapeutic response.
• Connect cell-based findings with animal-study design, including dose selection, timing, tissue collection, biomarker selection, efficacy readouts, and follow-up experiments.
• Help interpret in vivo results and design follow-up in vitro, ex vivo, or in vivo experiments to explain efficacy, toxicity, pharmacodynamic activity, or unexpected biological findings.
• Help prioritize candidates for advancement into in vivo efficacy, biodistribution, pharmacology, and safety studies.
• Collaborate with chemistry, formulation, synthetic biology, engineering, and preclinical development teams.
• Present data clearly, pressure-test hypotheses, and help drive scientific decision-making across programs.
• Mentor junior scientists and help build a rigorous translational biology team.

Why Join Us

New Medicines:
Help develop next-generation medicines for deadly cancers and infectious diseases.

Scientific Breadth:
Work across discovery biology, cancer biology, immunology, virology, synthetic biology, nucleic acid therapeutics, in vitro screening, and in vivo pharmacology.

Compensation:
Highly competitive salary and equity packages.

Benefits:
Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance | 401(k) with matching | Flexible schedules

New Skills:
Learn cutting-edge therapeutic development, robotics, and AI. Our engineering team can help you develop high-throughput automated systems to accelerate your screens. You will also be exposed to how startups work, from funding to prioritization decisions.

Start-Up Culture:
Work in a fast-moving biotech startup with minimal bureaucracy to build precision medicines.

Additional Info

• Work Authorization: Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.

• Merit-Based: Hiring decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and business needs. Autonomous Therapeutics is an Equal Opportunity employer.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $100,000.00 – $170,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible schedule
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Relocation assistance
• Stock options
• Vision insurance

Work Location: In person