Scientist I/II, Drug Delivery Chemistry

Your Impact at LILA

We are seeking a Scientist (II) to join our Physical Sciences team. This role will focus on assisting in the design and development of a high throughput chemical synthesis platform, with emphasis on medicinal chemistry and drug delivery applications. The ideal candidate will have experience synthesizing, analyzing, and optimizing novel molecules to build out structure-activity relationships for a library of compounds. This position will work closely with others across the chemistry, formulations, engineering, machine learning, and data science teams to help establish next-generation tools for therapeutic development and drug delivery. Your work will bridge the physical sciences and bioanalytical domains, enabling high-throughput experimentation for closed-loop optimization of organic compounds.

What You'll Be Building

• Design, synthesize, and optimize novel lipids, small molecules, and other combinatorial chemistry compound libraries for drug delivery applications
• Design and deploy high-throughput synthesis strategies, build automated assay platforms, and develop innovative approaches to interrogate large chemical spaces
• Partner closely with chemistry, computational, and automation teams to establish structure-activity relationships for compound libraries to guide iterative design strategies
• Implement data-driven approaches to analyze screening outputs and guide iterative molecule design.
• Work with and manage projects with CDMOs for research-grade synthesis, with considerations towards scale-up of lead compounds
• Establish best practices for screening data quality, reproducibility, and assay robustness.
• Collaborate across disciplines to translate screening hits into validated chemical starting points for therapeutic programs.

What You’ll Need to Succeed

• Ph.D. in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, or a related field.
• ≥ 1 years of experience with automation, instrumentation, and integrating real-time analytics into experimental workflows.
• Strong background in organic synthesis, with experience designing and synthesizing novel organic compounds.
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.

Bonus Points For

• Familiarity with novel lipid design for drug delivery applications
• Prior knowledge and implementation of biodegradability and tolerability design principles, with working knowledge of biological implications of compound moieties
• Prior experience working in an autonomous or self-driving chemical lab environment driving organic chemistry transformations
• Hands-on experience with AI-driven experimental design or Bayesian optimization
• Background in scaling workflows from proof-of-concept to routine, high-throughput operation