Senior Scientist, Roche Cell and Organoid Biorepository (RoCOB)

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

The Position

In Roche’s Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development organisation (pRED), we make transformative medicines for patients in order to tackle some of the world’s toughest unmet healthcare needs. At pRED, we are united by our mission to transform science into medicines. Together, we create a culture defined by curiosity, responsibility, and humility, where our talented people are empowered and inspired to bring forward extraordinary life-changing innovation at speed.

Strategy, Portfolio & Operations (SPO) is a unified function that serves as the strategic and operational backbone enabling pRED's strategy from lab to clinic. Operating under a dynamic Chapter Model, SPO centralizes specialized skills across critical areas including Sites & Lab Services, Program & Project Management, Strategy, Clinical Operations, External Operations, Capability Development, Core Lab Technology Platforms (360Labs) and Asset Team Leadership. SPO’s mission is to drive enterprise value creation by delivering operational excellence and accelerating portfolio productivity. As a trusted partner, SPO fosters a culture of collaboration and accountability to ensure pRED transitions assets smoothly from early research to late-stage development.

360 Labs Chapter at a Glance

The primary mission of the 360 Labs Chapter within SPO is to provide greater access and support for the use of cutting-edge biomedical research technologies by scientists across our discovery portfolio. 360 Labs delivers core scientific technologies, expertise and enabling activities, as well as facilitating knowledge sharing in close collaboration with our therapeutic areas and functions. Our ambition is to bring to life a thriving workplace environment, where your collaborative mindset is as valued as your professional expertise. Our goal is to act as a highly integrated ecosystem, supporting research and development, working collaboratively, and focused on fostering excellence and sustainability. Together, these efforts will serve to increase the speed, enhance the robustness and improve the sustainability of our exploratory research and early discovery activities.

The Opportunity

The Roche Cell and Organoid Biorepository (RoCOB) in the 360 Labs Chapter is seeking an experienced, highly motivated, collaborative, and customer-centric lab-based senior scientist. The successful candidate will have an in-depth understanding of cell line biobanking workflows, including culture, cryopreservation, quality control oversight, and licensing/compliance management, along with expertise working with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human primary cells. Experience supporting organoid culture systems and multidisciplinary projects involving complementary technologies, such as genomics, imaging, or functional assays, is highly desirable.

You will work with a sense of urgency as part of a matrix team, collaborating with specialists from each of our therapeutic disease areas and functions to ensure reliable, compliant, and well-characterised cell-based materials are available to propel drug discovery projects forward. You will also contribute to the ongoing development and operations of the Roche Cell and Organoid Biorepository within the pRED organisation.

Your Role and Responsibilities:

• You will work closely with laboratory research teams across pRED to support cell line and stem cell-based research needs, leading the development and implementation of workflows for culturing, expanding, cryopreserving, and banking immortalised cell lines, iPSCs, hESCs and human primary cells;
• You will coordinate with external CROs and the biorepository team to manage routine quality control testing (identity, mycoplasma, sterility, viability, karyotype/genomic stability), reviewing results and maintaining documentation to ensure the integrity and traceability of all biorepository holdings;
• You will train and support laboratory scientists in cell culture techniques and biobanking best practices, while independently managing licensing compliance, material transfer agreements, and usage restrictions to ensure institutional, ethical, and regulatory adherence;
• You will stay at the forefront of emerging cell line authentication, pluripotent cell culture, and biobanking technologies through continuous engagement with scientific literature and regulatory guidance; share findings with internal stakeholders and at conferences as appropriate.

Who You Are

• You hold a PhD degree in Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, or a related field, with at least 3 years of professional experience working within a cell culture-intensive research laboratory, biobank, or shared technology facility;
• You possess practical, hands-on skills in the culture, expansion, cryopreservation, and banking of cell cultures. This includes experience working with immortalised cell lines, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human primary cells, along with expertise in differentiation protocols and associated quality control practices. Competency with organoid culture systems will be considered a plus;
• You have experience navigating licensing agreements, material transfer agreements (MTAs), and regulatory/ethical compliance requirements associated with the sourcing, banking, and distribution of cell lines and human-derived stem cell materials.

In addition to your scientific expertise and critical technical skills, we are looking for candidates who are:

• Customer-focused with a drive for growth and a questioning mindset. Skilled in creative problem-solving, organisation, and implementing innovative ideas efficiently in a fast-paced research context; 
• Excellent communicators with a high fluency in English, a desire to continuously build a personal network and the ability to thrive in a dynamic, inclusive environment which gives you full accountability for your own contributions and development.

At Roche, we aim high to deliver life-changing healthcare solutions. If you’re ready to make a meaningful impact on patients and healthcare systems worldwide, this is the place for you. 

Who we are

A healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact.

Let’s build a healthier future, together.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.