In Vivo Scientist/Sr. Scientist

About Mantra Bio:

Mantra Bio is a biotechnology company developing exosome therapeutics. We are a data-first company re-imagining therapeutics from the ground up by leveraging insights from exosomes. Our team of biologists, data scientists, and platform engineers have built REVEAL^TM, a proprietary exosome intelligence platform enabling the discovery of exosomes therapeutics in multiple disease areas. We are proud to count 8VC, Viking, Illumina, and TenCent among our investors. Mantra Bio is a resident company of Bayer Innovation, Bayer Co-Laborator in Mission Bay, San Francisco.  

About the Role:

Mantra Bio is seeking a highly motivated Scientist to design, develop, and execute critical in vivo studies and analytical assays in support of our therapeutic candidates and early discovery exosome therapeutics platform. You will work cross-functionally with scientists, engineers, and data scientists to rapidly develop critical assays in a fast, nimble culture. The primary functions of this role are to equip our vivarium and to develop and work with different in vivo rare disease models (mice and rats) and histopathology procedures to obtain data in efficacy, safety, biodistribution and PK/PD studies for Mantra Bio’s therapeutic candidates. You are operationally minded, able to run multiple projects in parallel and able to communicate strategy, methodology, progress and challenges to drive the team and projects forward. A successful applicant will have prior hands-on experience in animal handling, dosing, tissue collection and tissue processing for histopathology analysis in preclinical studies. A successful applicant will be comfortable working independently and setting up our vivarium to perform high risk/high impact research, work collaboratively across various projects to meet milestones, and play a key role in building the culture of the company as it grows.

Responsibilities:

• Equip our vivarium to perform in vivo studies focusing on Mantra Bio's therapeutic areas.

   

• Lead, design, execute and analyze data of in vivo studies to evaluate efficacy, biodistribution, PK/PD, and safety of our therapeutic candidates in rodent models.

   

• Hands-on work to establish different animal rare disease models to administer test articles by various routes of administration (IVT, IV, IP, IM, SC, IC, topical, etc).

   

• Perform rodent bleeding (cardiac puncture, submandibular, tail vein, etc.), and blood processing to obtain plasma or serum for downstream PK analysis.

   

• Perform rodent surgery, necropsy, euthanasia, tissue harvesting and perfusion.

   

• Establish SOPs for histology processing, leading the development of protocols for tissue fixation, embedding, staining, and imaging analysis.

   

• Perform ex vivo analyses to examine drug pharmacodynamics and support biomarker discovery.

   

• Design and develop cell based assays to examine target binding and downstream pathway modulation for different candidates.

   

• Author ACUP, SOPs, study protocols and study reports to ensure GLP-like studies are performed.

   

• Complete accurate documentation of all work performed in a database and electronic lab notebook (ELN).

   

• Interact with contract research organizations to perform in vivo studies and relevant analytical assays as required.

   

• Champion in vitro and in vivo testing in the validation of our different candidates.

   

• Work closely with scientists from other teams at Mantra Bio to coordinate tasks and ensure that projects milestones are completed.

   

• Analyze and process data to generate presentations for internal and external company meetings, supporting company leadership in patent filing and scientific publications.

   

• Work closely with the Senior Director of Preclinical Development to communicate strategy, methodology, progress, and challenges to drive the team and projects forward.

   

• Provide training, guidance and mentorship to junior staff on the preclinical team.

   

What We're Looking For:

• Ph.D. in pharmacology, immunology, cellular biology or similar with >3 years, MS with 5-7 years or BS with 7-10 years of relevant experience of drug development in an industry animal laboratory setting. 

   

• Experience equipping vivariums and working with different rare diseases is desirable.

   

• Knowledge on ethical animal handling, writing Animal Care and Use Procedure (ACUP), study protocol, study reports and SOPs.

   

• Strong hands-on work developing and/or optimizing disease models in rodents with different routes of administration (IVT, IV, IP, IM, SC, IC, topical, etc).

   

• Hands-on animal blood collection by different techniques like cardiac puncture, submandibular, retro-orbital, tail vein, etc, for PK/BD analysis.

   

• Experience in rodent tissue perfusion (single organ and whole-body), surgeries, anesthesia, euthanasia and necropsy. Experience in Eye subregion dissection is a plus.

   

• Prior experience developing protocols and preparing rodent tissues using different fixation, embedding, staining and sectioning techniques for histopathology studies is required.

   

• Proficient in analytical techniques including multicolor flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, RT-qPCR, RNA extraction, Western blotting, ELISA, ELISPOT and other immunoassays.

   

• Experience in development and qualification of cell based assays is desirable.

   

• Excellent organizational and documentation skills with prior experience writing IND regulatory documents for efficacy, safety and DMPK studies in rodents, in GMP and GLP environments is highly desirable.

   

• Prior experience working and managing CROs is preferred.

   

• Ability to work independently and with minimal supervision.

   

• Experience mentoring, coaching, and training junior staff members is preferred.

   

• Highly self-motivated and detail-oriented individual, with proven ability to work in a dynamic and fast paced environment.

   

• Comfortable working with a data-driven team and collaborating with research scientists, data scientists and platform engineers from different backgrounds.

   

• • Familiarity or experience with scripting and statistical analysis of data, nice to have.
  • Experience collaborating with computational scientists while analyzing data, nice to have.

Our Mission:

Well Being for All. 

We create exosome therapeutics that eliminate suffering and enable our global community to live well. At Mantra Bio, we believe in cultivating a principled environment of ‘Well Being’ for our team first that extends to the patients we seek to cure.

Mantra Bio’s Culture:

At Mantra Bio, we value Self-Empowerment, Candor, Curiosity, and Unity. We take pride in building a close knit team of humble, wildly intelligent All Stars that thrive in collaborative environments. We trust each team member to do what’s best for the organization and strive for ‘People over Process.’ We believe that a culture of feedback is essential to personal growth, and in turn, organizational growth. We practice giving and receiving feedback as often as we can, while giving and receiving kudos even more. Above all, we believe in cultivating curiosity and learning, in an environment of empathy and respect.

Mantra Bio is committed to inclusion and diversity in our hiring practices. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We believe in diversity being the backbone of a strong company.