Scientist/Immunologist: Improving responses to immunotherapy

ABOUT THE ROLE

You will be joining a newly incorporated company founded by Dr. Loïc Roux, OligoTune, as a scientist with expertise in immunology and cancer immunotherapy. Over the last 9 months, Loïc has worked with DSV, devising and de-risking a novel RNA-based approach to overcome immune suppression in the tumour microenvironment. This venture is now close to being launched, and by joining Loïc at this stage, you will be driving the key experimental work required to achieve early stage milestones, optimising the preclinical development of this approach. OligoTune will continue receiving support from the DSV team post-spinout, and in addition, you will be teamed up with our Venture Partner for this opportunity, Dr. Steven Powell, alongside a growing advisory board.

THE OPPORTUNITY AREA

Immunotherapies, especially antibody-based immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and CAR-T cell therapy have revolutionised cancer treatment with incredible results in a subset of solid tumours and in blood cancers, respectively. Despite this widely recognised success and paradigm shift in cancer treatment, these therapies still only increase median patient survival by limited degrees, often by only 10-20% vs. chemotherapies, or they only work in selected patient subsets with variable predictability. In addition, the development of resistance mechanisms, such as enhanced immune suppression, is frequent, as a result of selective pressure on the cancer to evade this method of detection by the immune system. This leads to therapeutic resistance initially and, later, recurrence. We are still far from enabling immunotherapies to work across all cancers, or in all patients.

Immune suppression is caused by a variety of mechanisms within the tumour microenvironment (TME) of solid tumours, and is a well-known cause for failure of ICIs. The lack of TME-specific cell markers means that targeted approaches (e.g. to inhibit or deplete TME cell types) incur significant autoimmune-like side effects on the same cells in other parts of the body, rendering these therapies intolerable or unusable in a substantial proportion of patients – an issue that typically compounds with combinatorial immunotherapies.

WHAT WE ARE BUILDING

In collaboration with our partner Cancer Research Horizons, we are seeking to build the ‘holy grail’ company, solving these above challenges by simultaneously reprogramming multiple problematic cell types in the tumour microenvironment, while preventing systemic toxicities associated with current treatments. We believe we can build technology that can revert the immune suppressive environment of solid tumours and transform them into a susceptible state where the full power of ICIs can be unleashed — even in patients who would otherwise not respond (or be eligible for) conventional ICI therapies.

The collaboration with Cancer Research Horizons Therapeutic Innovation brings a highly-skilled team of scientific leaders and hands-on experts to drive the creation of this venture and realise a streamlined pathway for this therapeutic approach to the clinic. DSV will provide ongoing support in venture creation and growth throughout the process, and experimental work will be supported through in-kind contributions at Cancer Research Horizons’ state-of-the-art research facilities in Cambridge, UK.

We are looking for a passionate and motivated scientist with strong immunological expertise and track-record in immunology or immuno-oncology, to drive forward the science of this early-stage biotech. The successful candidate will be a key player in:

• Driving the strategic direction of the immuno-oncology aspects of the experimental work plan;
• Designing, refining and optimising the experimental work plan and scientific process;
• Orchestrating the development of cutting-edge oligonucleotide therapeutics for critical in vitro and ex vivo translational studies in order to assess efficacy, toxicology and PK/PD profiles of those drugs in the context of our technology;
• Planning in vivo biodistribution and efficacy studies;
• Ensuring that all techniques are updated with the latest advancements in the field;
• Guiding the development and integration of new assays and technologies, to continuously improve our technology;
• Streamlining the workflow to adhere to timelines and budgets;
• Ensuring data quality and integrity, to align with objectives and deadlines;
• Crafting compelling data packages and presentations for investor conversations.

Requirements

WHO SHOULD APPLY

Essential (must-have):

• You have a PhD in immunology or immuno-oncology (or MRes + 5 years of relevant work experience).
• You are driven by unsolved challenges in medicine, especially oncology and immunotherapy, and have the ambition to work with a team to build new solutions resulting in curative therapies
• A deep biological understanding of immune cell biology, particularly immune cells present within the tumour microenvironment
• Extensive hands-on experience in functional immunological assays, particularly with tumour microenvironment immune cell types (ie. T cells, Tregs, macrophages, others).
• A deep understanding of cancer immunotherapy mechanisms and associated challenges at the biological, clinical and technical levels
• You are innovative, creative, and guided by first-principles thinking

Preferred (nice-to-have):

• Track record of high quality publications in the field, or thought leadership in the field
• Bioinformatics and data analysis skills
• Drug discovery or (pre-)clinical development expertise

Benefits

OUR OFFER:

• Salary benchmarked against similar stage companies, with an attractive share option plan for early hire
• We provide optimised, purpose-built, proprietary tools, resources and processes to help create high-impact ventures from scratch, using our venture creation methodology.
• We draw on opportunity area specific know-how provided by our network of Partners and Advisors;
• DSV provide continuous support after post spin-out, including fundraising, commercial partnerships, recruitment and team-building (amongst other things); plus
• There are dozens of Founders currently at DSV across sectors working collaboratively and supporting one another - a unique resource to draw on.

WHO YOU’LL BE JOINING:

You will be joining Dr. Loïc Roux, an accomplished scientist whose expertise sits within biotechnology, drug discovery and development, pharmacokinetic and translational science with a focus on design, manufacture, formulation and pre-clinical development of nucleic acid therapeutics. His experience comes from prestigious institutions in the nucleic acid field including The RNA Therapeutics Institute at UMass Med School and Oxford University, where he pushed forward research programs in neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases. After a position as principal scientist at PepGen Ltd promoting a peptide delivery platform for nucleic acid delivery, he contributed to building and establishing NATA, a new UKRI initiative aiming to promote the development of nucleic acid therapeutics. He then moved back to industry as Director of Lead Development for OchreBio, a Phenomics-led RNA medicines company developing the next-generation of RNA therapeutics for chronic liver diseases where he built oligonucleotide and new modalities chemistry capabilities, alongside efficacy and toxicity biology capabilities, to collaborate on programs including target screens, translational model development from primary cells to human organs, delivery methodology for specific cell types including HCC cancer cells, and led innovation programs for IP generation and scientific strategy.

ABOUT DSV

Deep Science Ventures is creating a future in which both humans and the planet can thrive.

We use our unique venture creation process to create, spin-out and invest into science companies, combining available scientific knowledge and founder-type scientists into high-impact ventures.

We operate in 4 sectors: Pharmaceuticals, Climate, Agriculture and Computation, tackling the challenges defining those areas by taking a first principles approach and partnering with leading institutions.