Scientist, Chemistry

About the company

How will you make an impact? As we advance the next generation of Genetic Sciences products, innovation in consumables will be critical to delivering improved assay performance and sensitivity, expanded multiplexing and detection channels, simpler workflows, and increasingly automated and integrated customer solutions.

Historically, significant dye and oligonucleotide innovation has been driven from Pleasanton, CA. As Singapore takes an increasingly important role in developing integrated qPCR systems and future automated workflows, we need Singapore based chemistry expertise that can translate emerging dye, probe, primer, and oligonucleotide technologies into system-level product innovations.

Your tasks

We are seeking a Scientist, Chemistry based in Singapore with strong industry R&D experience and deep expertise in dye and oligonucleotide chemistry. This scientist will serve as a critical scientific and technical bridge between our established dye/oligonucleotide chemistry expertise in Pleasanton, California, and our qPCR system development and integration teams in Singapore.

This role will have a particular focus on enabling our future Lab-in-the-Loop initiatives, where instruments, automation, assays, consumables, software, and data must function together as an integrated solution. Successful automation requires more than instrument innovation—it requires automation-compatible consumables and chemistries engineered for reliable, high-performance, end-to-end workflows.

The Scientist will therefore work across chemistry, assay development, system engineering, automation, manufacturing, and product development teams to identify and develop future consumable technologies. The Scientist should understand current oligonucleotide manufacturing processes and consumable form factors—including primers, probes, fluorescent dyes, quenchers, and products such as TaqMan™ Array Plates—and use this knowledge to help define the next generation of integrated and automation-ready solutions.

This is not solely an execution-focused laboratory position. We are looking for an industry-experienced R&D scientist who can connect chemistry innovation with future product and platform needs, identify technology opportunities, solve complex technical problems, and influence future product development and new product introduction (NPI).

Drive Dye and Oligonucleotide Innovation

• Partner with organic chemistry scientists to evaluate new fluorescent dyes, quenchers, linkers, and chemical modifications for next-generation molecular biology applications.
• Investigate relationships among oligonucleotide sequence and structure, chemical modifications, dye/quencher properties, and functional assay performance.
• Identify emerging chemistry and consumable technologies that could enable improved sensitivity, multiplexing, workflow simplification, automation, or differentiated product performance.

Serve as the Singapore–Pleasanton Scientific Bridge

• Serve as a key technical liaison between Singapore-based qPCR system/integration teams and dye/oligonucleotide chemistry expertise in Pleasanton, CA.
• Transfer knowledge, technologies, methods, and scientific insights between the two sites to accelerate product innovation and NPI.
• Translate chemistry capabilities developed in Pleasanton into technologies that can be incorporated into future Singapore-led qPCR systems and integrated workflows.
• Communicate Singapore system, automation, and workflow requirements back to chemistry teams so future dye and oligonucleotide development considers complete product and system requirements.
• Build strong working relationships across global R&D, chemistry, assay development, engineering, manufacturing, and product development organizations.
• Participate in global technical discussions and provide chemistry expertise during early product and technology definition.

Enable Future Lab-in-the-Loop and Automation Solutions

• Provide chemistry and consumables expertise for future Lab-in-the-Loop, integrated laboratory, and automated molecular biology workflows.
• Partner with system engineering and automation teams to define requirements for automation-ready primers, probes, reagents, and consumable formats.
• Evaluate how consumable chemistry, physical form factor, stability, handling, and manufacturing processes affect automated workflow reliability and system performance.
• Develop a strong understanding of existing oligonucleotide manufacturing processes and identify opportunities to evolve chemistry and manufacturing approaches for future integrated solutions.
• Understand current consumable formats, including TaqMan Array Plates and related qPCR consumables, and identify opportunities for future automation-compatible form factors.
• Conduct feasibility studies that connect chemistry innovation with instruments, automation, assay, and workflow requirements.
• Identify technical risks at the interfaces between chemistry, consumables, instruments, and automation and develop experimental strategies to address them.

Lead Experimental R&D

• Independently design experimental strategies, execute experiments, analyze complex data, draw scientifically sound conclusions, and recommend next steps.
• Design and perform real-time PCR experiments to evaluate primers, probes, fluorescent dyes, quenchers, and modified oligonucleotide constructs.
• Operate real-time PCR instruments and analyze amplification data to understand chemistry and assay performance.
• Independently troubleshoot complex challenges involving synthesis, purification, labeling, characterization, PCR performance, and chemistry/system integration.
• Develop and optimize experimental methods supporting feasibility studies, technology development, NPI, and product improvement programs.

Translating Research into Products

• Apply strong industry R&D judgment to translate scientific concepts into technologies suitable for robust, manufacturable commercial products.
• Balance assay performance with manufacturability, scalability, quality, stability, cost, automation compatibility, and system-level requirements.
• Collaborate with manufacturing teams on process development, scale-up, technology transfer, and troubleshooting of new oligonucleotide constructs and consumable technologies.
• Clearly communicate experimental results, technical risks, conclusions, and recommendations to multidisciplinary project teams and leadership.
• Provide technical guidance and share dye, oligonucleotide chemistry, and PCR expertise with scientists and cross-functional partners.

What does success look like in this role? The successful Scientist will become a trusted chemistry expert in Singapore and an effective scientific bridge to Pleasanton, ensuring that dye and oligonucleotide innovation is incorporated early into future qPCR system and product development.

Success will include not only delivering strong experimental results, but also helping the organization anticipate what chemistries, probes, primers, consumable formats, and manufacturing capabilities will be required for the next generation of automated and Lab-in-Loop solutions.

The individual will connect chemistry innovation, consumables, manufacturing, automation, and system development to help transform emerging technologies into differentiated products and integrated customer workflows.

Requirements

Education and Experience

• Master’s degree in chemistry, Biochemistry, Chemical Biology, Molecular Biology, or a related scientific discipline with 3–5+ years of relevant industry R&D experience, particularly in oligonucleotide, dye, diagnostic, life-science, or molecular biology product development; or
• PhD in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Chemical Biology, Molecular Biology, or a related scientific discipline with relevant research experience; industry R&D or product-development experience strongly preferred.

For this position, demonstrated experience translating scientific research into technologies, products, manufacturing processes, or commercial applications is highly valued.

Required Qualifications

• Strong hands-on expertise in oligonucleotide chemistry, including synthesis, purification, chemical modification, conjugation, and characterization.
• Demonstrated knowledge or experience with fluorescent dye and/or probe chemistry, particularly for molecular biology applications.
• Hands-on experience with analytical and purification techniques such as HPLC, LC-MS, UV-Vis spectroscopy, or related methods.
• Hands-on experience with real-time PCR/qPCR instrumentation and experiments.
• Experience evaluating primers, probes, dyes, quenchers, or chemically modified oligonucleotides in functional assays.
• Demonstrated ability to independently design experiments, analyze complex data, troubleshoot technical challenges, and develop scientifically sound recommendations.
• Strong understanding of the relationship between chemistry, assay performance, manufacturability, and product requirements.
• Demonstrated scientific problem-solving and critical-thinking capabilities, including root-cause investigation and development of experimental approaches for complex multidisciplinary problems.
• Ability to operate effectively across multiple scientific and engineering disciplines and connect chemistry-level innovation with system-level requirements.
• Ability to manage multiple R&D priorities and independently advance technical objectives.
• Strong laboratory documentation, technical writing, and presentation skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and demonstrate effectiveness working with multidisciplinary and geographically distributed teams.
• Ability and willingness to collaborate extensively with colleagues in Pleasanton, California, Singapore, and other global R&D and manufacturing locations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Industry R&D experience in life sciences, diagnostics, biotechnology, or related product-development environments.
• Experience translating research-stage chemistry or assay concepts into commercial products or NPI programs.
• Experience with automated DNA/RNA synthesizers and advanced chemically modified oligonucleotides.
• Deep experience with fluorescent dyes, quenchers, bioconjugation chemistry, NHS ester chemistry, click chemistry, or related conjugation technologies.
• Experience designing and evaluating fluorescently labeled probes and primers for real-time PCR applications.
• Experience with multiplex qPCR and the development or evaluation of new fluorescent detection channels.
• Experience investigating the effects of oligonucleotide modifications, fluorescent dyes, and quenchers on PCR probe and assay performance.
• Experience with oligonucleotide manufacturing, process development, scale-up, or technology transfer.
• Familiarity with TaqMan products, array-based qPCR consumables, or related molecular biology consumable formats.
• Experience developing chemistries or consumables for automated laboratory workflows, integrated instruments, or sample-to-answer systems.
• Experience collaborating with instrument engineering, automation, systems engineering, manufacturing, or software teams in an integrated product-development environment.
• Demonstrated ability to identify technology opportunities and translate scientific innovation into future product concepts.