Associate Scientist/Scientist - Vector Engineering in Evanston, Illinois at Syenex

About Syenex

Syenex is an open-science biotechnology company building the delivery technologies that unlock the future of genetic medicine. We engineer cell-specific delivery platforms—including enveloped vectors such as extracellular vesicles and viral vectors—that give cell and gene therapy developers best-in-class, plug-and-play tools spanning discovery through GMP manufacturing.

Founded in 2022 and based in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, Syenex operates on an Open Science model: we make a continuously improving catalog of cell-engineering and delivery technologies universally accessible to academia and biopharma, freeing our partners to focus on their therapeutic insight. Through a growing network of partnerships and CDMO integrations, we help developers move from idea to clinical impact faster, at lower cost, and with higher delivery efficiency.

We are a small, multidisciplinary team that pairs rigorous synthetic biology with a build-fast, collaborate-openly culture. This role is central to how we scale that science.

About the role

We are looking for an accomplished and highly motivated Associate Scientist/Scientist with expertise in mammalian cell engineering to join our Discovery Team. This scientist will help develop and evaluate next-generation delivery vectors and genetic payloads for engineering primary human immune cells. The role will combine general synthetic biology and cell engineering with vector design and quantitative assay development to build technologies that enable efficient packaging and delivery of different biological cargo types. The scientist will work towards both identifying novel vector designs and also building understanding of the principles that underly their function and therapeutic potential.

The ideal candidate has substantial hands-on experience with synthetic biology and understands the general principles of gene expression and genetic program design and implementation. The ideal candidate also has substantial experience engineering human immortalized and/or primary cells and has familiarity with techniques for introducing DNA into human cells (transient and/or stable engineering). Experience with engineering viral or non-viral delivery vectors is a plus.

The scientist will serve as an independent contributor and scientific problem-solver who can own experimental workstreams end-to-end, from defining the biological question and designing experiments through execution, analysis, interpretation, and recommendation of next steps. They will join a highly collaborative team spanning synthetic biology, molecular biology, immunology, vector engineering, and cell biology.

Candidates will be considered at the Associate Scientist or Scientist level based on relevant experience.

What you'll do

• Design, build, and evaluate diverse genetic payloads for mammalian cell engineering, spanning transient gene delivery and stable integration strategies, including targeted and random integration.
• Design, build, and evaluate gene-editing cargos, including nucleases and other genome-editing enzymes, and optimize their incorporation into engineered delivery systems.
• Characterize gene and protein expression in mammalian cells using flow cytometry, sequencing, qPCR, ELISA, and imaging techniques

• Develop scalable and higher-throughput screening workflows to enable evaluation and optimization of large numbers of vector designs
• Independently design, execute, troubleshoot, and analyze experiments, and use experimental results to recommend subsequent studies
• Develop, optimize, document, and implement experimental protocols and standard operating procedures to improve reproducibility and support transfer of established workflows
• Maintain complete and accurate experimental records and sample metadata using electronic laboratory notebooks, databases, and sample-tracking systems
• Maintain and expand immortalized and primary human cell cultures
• Perform molecular biology-based cloning and plasmid preparation
• Provide technical guidance to junior scientists and research associates as appropriate
• Present scientific results to project teams, the broader R&D organization, and company leadership

Qualifications

Required

• PhD in cell biology, molecular biology, bioengineering, biomedical engineering, synthetic biology, immunology, or a related discipline; or a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a related field with 4–6 years of relevant laboratory experience in an academic or industry setting.

• Hands-on experience culturing and experimentally manipulating mammalian immortalized and primary cells using aseptic cell culture techniques.

• Experience engineering mammalian cells with transient transfection and stable, genomic integration methods.
• Experience with gene editing, including CRISPR/Cas systems, base editing, or targeted gene integration.
• Strong understanding of synthetic biology, including genetic program design.
• Experience with cell characterization techniques including flow cytometry, microscopy, and protein characterization (e.g., ELISA, western blot).
• Experience with molecular biology techniques (e.g. genomic DNA extractions, qPCR, plasmid preparation).
• Demonstrated attention to experimental rigor, data quality, and reproducibility.
• Strong written and verbal scientific communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively both independently and collaboratively across multiple projects.
• Highly motivated with a strong desire to learn and contribute to team science.
• Strong work ethic with attention to detail and data quality.

Preferred

• Relevant academic or industry research experience.
• Experience with producing, using, and characterizing viral vectors, virus-like particles, extracellular vesicles, or synthetic nanoparticles.
• Experience with molecular (plasmid) design and cloning.
• Experience with mammalian cell plasmid transfection.
• Experience mentoring and training junior scientists in a laboratory environment.

Why Join Syenex

At Syenex, scientists have the opportunity to work on technically challenging problems at the forefront of cell and gene therapy while having a direct impact on the development of new platform technologies. Our team operates with a high degree of scientific ownership, collaboration, and intellectual curiosity.

You will have the opportunity to:

• Help develop new approaches for engineering human immune cells both ex vivo and in vivo.
• Work across vector design, genome engineering, primary cell biology, and quantitative assay development.
• Own scientific questions from experimental design through data interpretation, next steps, and product development.
• See your work rapidly translated from early discovery into platform development and external therapeutic programs.
• Work closely with scientists across disciplines in a collaborative, fast-moving startup environment.