Lead Scientist, Translational Neuro-Oncology

About Valanyr

Valanyr is a privately funded research company with one purpose: to give a single patient with recurrent IDH-mutant astrocytoma (CNS WHO grade 4), a primary brain cancer, a full-time scientist who works only on her disease. We work hand in hand with her treating neuro-oncologist, who can give her experimental therapies through FDA single-patient expanded access (compassionate use) and new research protocols. Our job is to find the most promising next treatments, test them as rigorously as time allows, and turn the results into evidence her physicians can act on.

We believe each patient’s cancer is its own disease, and that treatment should follow its whole molecular picture and change as new data arrive. We also work in the open. With the patient’s consent, her full dataset will be released publicly, similar to osteosarc.com, so other researchers can build on it.

The role

You will be Valanyr’s first and only full-time scientist. You will own the research plan, work at the bench in a shared laboratory facility, design and manage the studies we fund at specialized labs and service providers, and explain every result, and what it could mean for her treatment options, in plain terms. You will report to Valanyr’s founder, the patient’s husband, who is closely involved in the scientific strategy, and you will work directly with her physician.

This is a research role. All clinical care, including sample collection, is provided by her physicians, and treatment decisions rest with her and her medical team. Your job is to give them the best possible evidence to decide with.

You will start with an unusually deep dataset and sample collection for a single patient. It includes tumor-normal whole-exome and tumor RNA sequencing from two independent vendors, high-resolution HLA typing, quantitative proteomics, commercial molecular profiles from both surgeries seven years apart, and serial MRI. It also includes archived tumor tissue from two surgeries (FFPE, plus snap-frozen tissue from the most recent one), serial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) through an Ommaya reservoir, and blood. The sequencing data already sit in a cloud compute environment with established analysis pipelines.

This is not a typical research job. The timeline is set by a patient’s clinical course, not a grant cycle. Priorities can shift with a new scan or lab result, and the work matters personally to everyone involved. If you want your work to change what happens next for a real person, and you can do rigorous science under that kind of pressure, we would like to hear from you.

Why this role

Ownership from day one. You set the research plan with her physician and family, and your results inform what her physicians consider next.
Speed. There are no grant cycles or committees. An idea can go from hypothesis to experiment in weeks, and a result can reach her physicians in days.
A direct line to the clinic. You’ll work with a neuro-oncologist experienced in single-patient expanded access and with a cell therapy manufacturing partner, so good science can become an option her physicians can pursue.
Resources to do the work. You’ll have lab space, a budget for experiments and outsourced studies, and an unusually complete dataset from the first day.
Work the field will see. With her consent, her data will be public and you’re free to publish, so what you learn can help the next patient and build your record.

What you will do

Own a research agenda ranked by expected benefit to the patient, and keep it current as results, scans and new therapeutic options arrive.
Run the sample program. That means taking custody of existing tissue, setting up standardized handling and processing of CSF and blood, and keeping a strict ledger for a biobank in which much of the material cannot be replaced.
Do hands-on bench work, from immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence on her tumor tissue to attempting to isolate and grow tumor cells from her CSF. Growing glioma cells from CSF has rarely been reported, but her resection cavity communicates with the ventricle, which makes it worth trying. You will also run droplet digital PCR and RT-PCR, flow cytometry, and immune function assays such as NK and T cell cytotoxicity assays and vaccine immunomonitoring.
Build a research monitoring program from CSF and blood that tracks the disease and its response to treatment: tracking cell-free tumor DNA and vesicle RNA, single-cell profiling of tumor and immune cells when draws allow, 2-HG and other metabolites, and drug levels in CSF as a proxy for what reaches the tumor.
Design and oversee outsourced studies such as spatial and single-cell transcriptomics, long-read sequencing and methylation profiling, proteomics and metabolomics, multiplex immunohistochemistry and pharmacokinetic assays. You will choose the vendors, write the specifications and check the data that come back.
Test therapeutic ideas before they reach the clinic. You will validate targets for cell therapies, run drug and combination studies in patient-derived cultures when available and in genotype-matched IDH-mutant glioma models, and critically review the evidence behind every candidate agent, including whether it reaches the brain.
Write the scientific rationale and preclinical sections of her physician’s single-patient expanded access (IND) requests, support research protocols and material transfer agreements, and serve as the technical point of contact for a cell therapy manufacturing partner.
Work with academic labs, core facilities, biotech and pharmaceutical companies and clinicians to get experiments run, data shared and investigational drugs made available to her physicians and the lab, and keep everyone moving on one plan.

What we are looking for

Required

You hold a PhD or MD/PhD in cancer biology, neuroscience, immunology, molecular biology or a related field, with at least two years of postdoctoral or industry experience in translational oncology.
You have strong hands-on skills in mammalian cell culture (primary cells preferred), molecular biology and flow cytometry.
You can read genomic and transcriptomic data (exome and RNA sequencing, copy number, fusions) and the scientific literature with a critical eye.
You know which experiment matters most when time and material are limited, and you design it so the answer is clear.
You can put a complex result, and how confident you are in it, on one page that a physician and a non-scientist can both follow.
You are comfortable working independently in a lean setting, including managing vendors, quotes, shipping and your own bench.

Strongly preferred

You have worked on glioma or other brain tumors, ideally IDH-mutant glioma or glioma stem cell and organoid culture.
You have tumor immunology or cell therapy experience, such as CAR-T, CAR-NK, TCR work, NK cell biology or vaccine immune monitoring.
You have done liquid biopsy or CSF work, such as cell-free DNA or RNA analysis, rare tumor cell isolation, digital PCR or single-cell sequencing.
You have written regulatory documents (IND sections, IRB protocols) or worked with CROs or in biotech industry settings.
You can analyze genomic data in R or Python.

Details

Location: Los Angeles area, on-site at a shared laboratory facility, with flexibility for writing and analysis days.
Funding: The position is fully funded for two years.
Start date: As soon as possible.
Work authorization: We prefer candidates already authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship, and we will consider sponsoring an exceptional candidate.
Publishing: You’re free to publish the program’s work, and Valanyr pays open-access publication fees, society memberships and travel to present at scientific meetings.