Laura Tong

As the first member of the discovery team, I will be building cloning vectors from scratch as we get our physical lab space up and running. Ultimately I will lead a team of scientists in the discovery group, overseeing all high throughput cloning and antibody screening. I will also be responsible for all antibody engineering as we develop bispecific antibodies to screen as novel solid tumor cancer therapeutics.

Led the Discovery team based in Newark, managing 3 team members, supporting my team during the transition from Teneobio into Amgen after the acquisition. Took on the role of initiating and tracking all immunizations using UniRats at CROs and oversaw the local Discovery team as they continued to lead projects through the high-throughout discovery pipeline. Worked closely with the Discovery group based in Vancouver (Amgen British Columbia) to ensure the Newark and BC teams were aware of each other’s efforts and progress. Supported internal efforts to ensure a smooth transition from Teneobio based workflows to Amgen’s systems and workflows.

Co-led Discovery efforts for novel cancer therapeutics. Continued to use my skills with high-throughput cloning, expression, and screening of heavy chain only antibodies. Led internal efforts of all antibody engineering (extensive in silico design of plasmids), including creating biosimilars, and I also handled all requests for medium-throughput expression and purification of antibodies (symmetric or asymmetric, heavy chain only and/or conventional). I managed two research associates and enjoyed working seamlessly with the rest of our Discovery team to make sure our pipeline ran smoothly and delivered hundreds of molecules per project in a very timely manner.

Co-led Discovery efforts for novel cancer therapeutics. Became skilled with high-throughput cloning and expression of antibodies, screening of antibodies by ELISA, and engineering biosimilars. I enjoyed working seamlessly with the rest of our Discovery team to make sure our pipeline ran smoothly and delivered hundreds of molecules per project in a very timely manner.

Working in this young (<2 year old) lab, I had the opportunity to take on many lab manager roles. In addition to leading my own project, I took on responsibility for much of the lab's mouse colony (genotyping, husbandry, etc), regularly ordered for the lab and maintained records of inventory, ordered and helped set up new machines, and ensured regular maintenance of the existing machinery. I also enjoyed mentoring undergrads as they rotated through or volunteered in the lab.

As a graduate student, I worked in the Immunology Department of the Lerner Research Institute, part of the Cleveland Clinic. I studied lupus-like disease in a murine model, dissecting the role of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in disease initiation and progression.

My focus as an undergraduate was chemistry, with additional interest in biology and mathematics. I spent 3 semesters working in an organic chemistry lab to complete my senior thesis.