Neuroscience Biology Lead

Position

Manifold Bio is seeking an enthusiastic, highly creative neuroscience lead to expand our drug discovery efforts. You will work closely with the founders and R&D leadership to refine our neuroscience strategy and advance pipeline programs treating diseases of the CNS.  The ideal candidate will have a strong scientific background and experience leading biologics programs in one or more CNS therapeutic areas (neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, neuro-oncology, etc). This is a unique opportunity to work with world-class technologists innovating in cutting edge molecular biology and compute approaches to realize the potential of a novel protein engineering platform. You will lead early discovery projects that integrate our novel platform capabilities with both internal and external R&D resources. Together, we’ll continue to fundamentally change the current paradigm of drug development through the original vision of massively increasing the throughput of testing protein therapeutics.

Responsibilities

• Guide company level neuroscience / CNS strategy
• Evaluate new project/target opportunities and propose POC experiments
• Leverage external resources and coordinate internal team members to lead projects from discovery to candidate selection
• Coordinate with protein engineering on binder discovery and/or evaluate in-licensing opportunities, considering  tradeoffs among target presentation and relation to disease biology
• Design screening funnels that integrate our novel mDesign in vivo biologics design platform
• Analyze and interpret data to enable decision making
• Design development plans to early human PoC, including specifying DC nomination criteria

Required Qualifications

• Biology Ph.D. or equivalent experience
• Experience designing screening funnels leveraging both in vitro and in vivo assays with a focus on biologics ( 5-10 for Dir. level; 10+ for VP level)
• Previous experience as a team lead or co-lead in an industry setting
• Experience with hybrid drug discovery models blending external and internal R&D workflows
• Highly independent and proactive, excellent communication and cross-functional team coordination skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with molecules that enhance BBB transcytosis (e.g. ‘shuttles’)
• Experience and interest in assay development (in vitro/ex vivo/in vivo)
• Experience with preclinical development and clinical trial planning

Why this might be a great role for you

• You are eager to solve the challenge of CNS delivery of biologics
• You love thinking about how to apply exciting new platforms
• You are excited about starting drug programs from the very beginning
• You want to join a small, agile, highly innovative team

We value different experiences and different ways of thinking and believe the most talented teams are built by bringing together people of diverse cultures, genders, and backgrounds.