As a key member of the site's flow cytometry platform, the Senior Specialist will support critical high-dimensional flow cytometry profiling and play a pivotal role in enabling and advancing the platform capabilities. Acting as the Core Lead and subject matter expert (SME), this position will serve as the primary point of contact for flow cytometry assay development and execution, driving centralization and standardization of workflows across the site. The Senior Specialist will support and mentor other scientists, ensuring robust assay design and high-quality data generation to accelerate research across multiple therapeutic areas.
Main Responsibilities:
- Lead and support critical high-dimensional flow cytometry profiling efforts to enable comprehensive immune and non-immune cell characterization in patient samples and cell lines.
- Serve as the Core Lead for the site's flow cytometry platform, centralizing assay design and execution to standardize and optimize workflows.
- Provide hands-on expertise and guidance in designing and implementing complex flow cytometry panels with 30 markers tailored to diverse disease settings and therapeutic areas.
- Maintain and oversee flow cytometer performance, including routine QC, instrument maintenance, and troubleshooting to ensure reliable data acquisition.
- Act as the key SME and primary point of contact for internal stakeholders and external collaborators to support flow cytometry-related projects, initiatives and harmonization of best practices across our research labs.
- Mentor and support other scientists in assay development, data acquisition, and analysis to build site-wide capabilities.
- Accurately document experimental protocols, data, and results in electronic lab notebooks and other required formats, ensuring compliance with company policies and regulatory standards.
- Collaborate cross-functionally to align flow cytometry efforts with broader research goals and project timelines.
- Stay up to date with emerging flow cytometry technologies, reagents, and best practices to continuously enhance core expertise and platform capabilities.
- Support translational study operations including tissue processing, assay optimization, and integration of flow cytometry data into study workflows.
Education level:
- BSc/MSc with more than five years of relevant research experience, preferably in a clinical research setting, a clinical/diagnostic laboratory, or pharmaceutical/biotech R&D
Experience and Skills
- Extensive hands-on experience with high-dimensional flow cytometry, including complex panel design (30 markers) using spectral cytometry, sample processing, data acquisition, and analysis.
- Proven leadership or core platform role experience, with the ability to centralize and standardize assay development and execution.
- Deep technical expertise in flow cytometer operation, maintenance, QC, and troubleshooting.
- Strong organizational skills to manage reagent inventories and coordinate multiple projects.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to serve as a SME and collaborate effectively with internal teams and external partners.
- Experience mentoring or supporting junior scientists in flow cytometry techniques and data interpretation.
- Proficiency with electronic documentation systems and adherence to data integrity and compliance requirements.
- Background in immunology, cell biology, or related biomedical sciences preferred.
- Familiarity with flow cytometry data analysis software (e.g., FlowJo, OMIQ, SpectroFlo etc.) is highly desirable.
Who we are
We are known as Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, we have been inventing for life, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.
What we look for
Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us-and start making your impact today.
