R&D Scientist

Responsibilities

Location(s) Woburn, Massachusetts Status Regular Job ID REQ-054895

Company Overview: 

Covaris, LLC (a PerkinElmer subsidiary) is a leading sample preparation solution provider in Biotechnology headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts and has pioneered the Adaptive Focused Acoustics®(AFA®) technology platform, thereby revolutionizing pre-analytical sample preparation in the world of Omics, such as genomics, proteomics, etc.

As a global leader in sample preparation technologies for life sciences research and molecular diagnostics applications, Covaris has successfully been awarded the ISO 13485 Quality System Certification. This certification demonstrates our commitment to meeting the highest international standards for medical device quality management systems and ensuring the high quality of life science research data for research and innovation.

Job Summary:

This position presents an exciting opportunity for a Scientist with life sciences education and experience.  The candidate is expected to substantially contribute to Research and Development projects in a leading ISO13485 – certified biotech company. The successful candidate will be part of a multi-disciplinary R&D team that integrates the expertise and experience of biologists, chemists, physicists and mechanical and electrical engineers. The candidate will support research and development of next generation genome sequencing and protein analysis platforms, including reagents, consumables and instrumentation systems.  This role requires interactions with multidisciplinary teams within and outside of The Company.

Essential Responsibilities and Position-related Expectations:

• Planning, execution and analysis of experiments to prove feasibility of new ideas and concepts. Generating feasibility data reports and presenting data in meetings.
• Writing protocols, executing experiments and perform data analysis. Presentation of results and conclusions in Reports and during Gate Review Meetings.
• Interaction with engineering and manufacturing Teams for prototype testing and assistance in product development and design verification activities.
• Migration of manually performed workflows to semi- and fully automated processes including the Company’s Adaptive Focused Acoustics (AFA) instrumentation.
• Ability to understand and to follow ISO13845 Operating Standards in all day-to-day activities.

Examples of day-to-day tasks include but are not limited to:

• Feasibility experiments that may include
  • sample prep, i.e., isolation of biomolecules such as nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and protein, downstream processing and analysis, with and without use of Covaris’ proprietary AFA™technology.
  • analysis of nucleic acids, such as quantification using various methods, including absorption, fluorescent quantification, qPCR and digital PCR mediated assessment of quantities and quality, electrophoretic molecular weight analysis, NGS library construction and sequencing runs on Illumina platforms.
  • analysis of proteins, including trypsin digests, ELISA assays and fluorescent quantification.
  • microbial and eukaryotic cell culture to develop novel sample prep workflows for manual as well as automated workflows.
• Generation of Protocols, SOPs and work instructions.
• Planning, directing and assisting V&V activities.

As a Successful Candidate You Will: 

• Be a self-starter, needing minimal daily supervision.
• Be able to work towards given goals and deadlines.
• Have excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Have product development experience in a competitive environment.
• Demonstrate solid analysis skills including Excel spreadsheet-based analysis and documentation, basic statistical knowledge.
• Have experience in basic molecular biology techniques (PCR, electrophoresis, nucleic acid or protein isolation and purification).
• Be knowledgeable about sterile cell cultures techniques.
• Possess a strong team spirit and willingness to work in an interdisciplinary group of scientists and engineers.
• Be flexible to perform, in addition to essential responsibilities listed above, other non-essential functions on an as-needed basis.
• Be able to handle and process clinical specimens, such as whole blood, plasma, FFPE and fresh/frozen tissue, microbial cultures.

Qualifications: 

• Ph.D. or M.S. degree (MS with 2-3 years of experience) in biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, clinical diagnostics or a related life science field.
  • Experience in industrial/commercial settings is a plus.
  • Basic knowledge of document-controlled development processes is required.
  • Experience with NGS data analysis and NGS Technology in general is a plus.