Senior/Principal Research Associate, Biochemistry and Cellular Neurodegeneration

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

At Roche, we believe it is urgent to deliver medical solutions right now, and we are passionate about transforming patients' lives. We are looking for a highly motivated research associate to join our team in Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED).

As a Senior/Principal Research Associate, you will be an integral member of our Protein Interactions lab within the Neural Signalling Section, a dynamic research unit at the heart of the Neuroscience and Rare Disease (NRD) therapeutic area. The overarching goal of the Neural Signalling Section is to move forward drug discovery projects, from target assessment to early clinical phase, in the therapeutic area of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. You will collaborate closely with experts across various laboratories within NRD, as well as with teams from other departments in the collaborative drug discovery matrix of pRED, to translate research hypotheses into innovative therapeutics that address brain disorders:

• Biochemistry of Protein Aggregation: Generate and characterize different aggregation states of proteins from recombinant proteins and human brain tissue homogenates using biochemical methods.

• Cell Culture: Support the team with developing and characterizing Tau mutant cell lines, iPSC neurons, and brain organoids. You will also establish and validate various protein complementation, functional and seeding assays in cell culture.

• Scientific Communication: Present your findings at internal project team and department meetings.

• Collaboration & Leadership: Work closely with all group members, share lab organizational duties, and actively contribute to a positive and collaborative work atmosphere. You will also provide guidance and knowledge sharing to fellow research associates, scientists, and students.

We are looking for someone with a deep scientific curiosity and a drive for innovation. You work independently but also excel in a collaborative and inclusive team environment:

• Required Qualifications: You have a bachelor's or master's degree in neuroscience, biology, biochemistry, life sciences, biomedicine, or a related field, with at least 5 years of laboratory experience or are holding a Biology Research Associate apprenticeship certificate or similar vocational training with several years of industry lab experience. Strong laboratory expertise in Tau biology or other intrinsically disordered proteins is required.

• Preferred Experience: You bring extensive hands-on lab experience with protein interactions using biophysical, biochemical, and cell biological methods. Experience working with tissue processing, protein oligomerization and antibody characterization in in vitro and ex vivo systems is preferred.

• Technical Skills: You excel in biochemical methods such as protein production (from E.coli, insect cells), purification (e.g.,FPLC, HPLC - HIC, SEC, IEC, IAC), Western blot, ELISA or related immunoassays. You also have expertise in working with various cell culture models, including primary neurons/iPSCs and techniques such as flow cytometry, immunocyto/histochemistry including establishing functional assays such as ROS, calcium & synapse analysis.Experience working with omics technology is a plus but not a must. 

• Computational skills: Excellent data management and record keeping skills; Experience in Graphpad, spotfire, R, python programming is preferred.

• Communication: You can communicate, write, and present fluently in English.

Call to Action

Ready to take the next step in your career? We're excited to see what you'll bring to the team.

Apply now and upload your CV, letters of recommendation and degree certificates to get started.

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Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.