Co-founder, Enabling Immunotherapies in Solid - Cambridge, United Kingdom - Deep Science Ventures

Deep Science Ventures

Verified Company

Cambridge, United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

beBee Recruiter

Description

THE CHALLENGE

Immunotherapies, especially antibody-based immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and CAR-Ts have revolutionised cancer treatment with incredible results in a subset of solid tumours and in blood-based 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 only 10-20% vs.

chemotherapies, or they only work in selected patient subsets with variable predictability.

Also, resistance is already developing as a result of selective pressure on the cancer to evade this method of detection by the immune system, leading to resistance initially and, later, reoccurrence.

We are still very far from immunotherapy treatments that work across cancers, or in all patients.

Immune suppression caused by a variety of different cells within the tumour microenvironment (TME) of solid tumours 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

The holy grail approach we are trying to build, in collaboration with our partner Cancer Research UK, will solve this by targeting only problematic cells within the TME while leaving other cells and tissues untouched.

We believe we can build technology that can revert the immune suppressive environment of solid tumours and transform them into a state where they are more susceptible to immune-based therapies like ICIs.

Requirements:

WHO SHOULD APPLY

You have a PhD or MD in nanomedicine, immunooncology, synthetic biology, molecular/cell biology, medical biotechnology or relevant disciplines with handson experience in working with nanoparticles for human use.
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.
You have strong expertise in nanoparticle technology and use of RNA/nucleic acids for human therapeutics
You have broad technical expertise across immunology, immunooncology, synthetic biology and biotechnology.
You ideally have deep, handson expertise _in at least 12 aspects from each of the following areas_**:
Therapeutic RNA delivery (pre-clinical/clinical setting preferred)

- mRNA or RNAi or DNA delivery to cells, nanoparticle/LNP technology, synthetic biology, genetic engineering/circuit modification, receptor/kill switch engineering
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Immuno-Oncology

Immune suppression, immune excluded and immune inflamed environments, immune infiltration, immune/cancer checkpoints, immunomodulators, immune system activation, immune cell differentiation, genome engineering of human immune cells, in vivo cell therapy

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TME components
- effector and cytotoxic T cells, regulatory T cells, myeloid cells, tumour-associated macrophages, cancer-associated fibroblasts, stromal cells

A strong plus would be experience in additional areas such as:
Systems biology, genetic and protein-protein interactions, epigenetic modifications, logic gates, signal transduction
You have some commercial or product development experience (or at least interest) with cell and/or in vivo therapies, including a highlevel understanding of product development from preclinical to clinical development and commercialization.

Benefits

WHEN VENTURE CREATORS MEET WOLRDCLASS CANCER SCIENTISTS

We have teamed up with Cancer Research UK's (CRUK) innovation engine Cancer Research Horizons Therapeutic Innovation (formerly Therapeutic Discovery Laboratories) and will work closely with a highly-skilled team of scientific leaders and hands-on experts to drive the creation of this venture and realize a streamlined pathway for this therapeutic approach to the clinic.

DSV will provide ongoing support in venture creation and growth throughout the process, and the new company will incubate at Cancer Research Horizons' state-of-the-art research facilities in Cambridge, UK.

JOIN US TO REVOLUTIONISE THE IMMUNOTHERAPY SPACE FOR SOLID TUMOURS

You will join Dr.

Elisa Arthofer, who has already applied DSV's unique ideation approach to identify multiple innovative solutions to overcome the challenges of current immunotherapies for solid tumours.

To complement her skillset, we are looking for an immuno-oncology/synthetic biology/nanotechnology co-founder (fixed contract, full-time) to initially work with us for ~3 months (at which timepoint the venture will be incorporated).

During this time, you will further refine the approaches already built and, together with the team, prepare a detailed strategic, scientific, and experimental plan for the first 1