About the role
Group Leader, Oligonucleotides Chemistry role based on the published job description. Key responsibilities and requirements were extracted directly from the posting for quick review.
ResearchOnsite
Key Responsibilities
- About NATi The Nucleic Acid Therapeutics Initiative (NATi), hosted by A*STAR, is Singapore's national platform dedicated to advancing RNA-based medicines and revolutionizing drug and vaccine development.
- NATi's mission is to establish Singapore as a globally recognized hub of excellence in nucleic acid therapeutics research, clinical translation, and commercialisation.
- NATi focuses on key RNA modalities such as antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), small interfering RNA (siRNA), and messenger RNA (mRNA).
- To drive this vision, NATi is building a biotech-like translational engine focused on asset and technology development spanning discovery to clinical development.
- Position Overview The Group Leader, Oligonucleotides Chemistry will oversee NATi's oligonucleotide chemistry capabilities spanning pre-clinical synthesis, separation, and analytical characterization workflows.
- Beyond establishing robust SPOS-based workflows, this role is instrumental in expanding the oligonucleotides platform into next-generation chemistries, novel constructs, and differentiated oligonucleotide formats.
Requirements
- Qualifications & Experience
- A doctorate degree in Chemistry, Chemical Biology, Organic/Medicinal Chemistry, or a related field.
- A minimum of 7+ (Senior Scientist), 10+ (Principal Scientist), 13+ (Associate Director) years of hands-on modern synthetic chemistry methods particularly in nucleosides, nucleotides, and oligonucleotide synthesis, purification, and analysis in pharmaceutical or biotechnology settings.
- Extensive hands-on experience with modern SPOS instrumentation (e.g., MerMade 192X/12, ÄKTA OligoSynth), purification systems (e.g., ÄKTA Avant/Pure, tangential flow filtration), and analytical platforms (e.g., UPLC, LC/MS, HRMS), and lyophilisers.
- Demonstrated ability to build or expand oligonucleotide chemistry capabilities, integrate emerging chemistries, and develop robust platform workflows.
- Experience managing or collaborating with CROs, including tech transfer, oversight, and governance of outsourced synthesis or analysis activities.