Principal Scientist siRNA Design

About the role

Roche is seeking a Principal Scientist to lead the design and optimization of therapeutic siRNA across multiple disease areas, from target assessment through lead optimization.

Key responsibilities

• Lead drug design strategy for siRNA therapeutics, integrating computational and empirical approaches for proof‑of‑concept and lead optimization.
• Guide projects to ensure early design decisions align with late‑stage clinical and manufacturing requirements.
• Develop and apply advanced chemical modification patterns and sequence selection strategies to improve pharmacological properties.
• Collaborate with AI experts to provide biological data and domain expertise for machine‑learning models.
• Act as the RNAi subject‑matter expert across cross‑functional project teams.

Required profile

• Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, Biochemistry or related field with 5+ years industry experience in siRNA/RNAi therapeutic design.
• Deep understanding of RNAi mechanisms and experience enhancing siRNA therapeutic profiles through chemical modifications.
• Ability to communicate complex nucleic‑acid chemistry to non‑experts and integrate feedback from diverse stakeholders.

Required skills

• siRNA design and optimization
• RNAi therapeutic development
• Computational modeling and AI/ML collaboration
• Command‑line utilities and scripting for sequence analysis