About the job

Senior Biomedical Scientist

In this role you will work with a growing team to design and execute early preclinical and clinical experiments to further understand stimulation therapies and sensed biomarkers for neuromodulation therapies for mental health disorders. Motif’s technology stack consists of a small implant that is wirelessly powered via magnetic fields from an external wearable transmitter, configured and controlled from a programming interface. It delivers novel stimulation therapy to cortical targets and will evolve to record biomarkers of symptoms, disease state, and therapy response. This role will drive early research into both domains, working to mature existing indications and to expand into new indications via grants and other parallel opportunities.

Motif is a startup, so this role will allow one to contribute across domains and gain experience on all elements of early stage medical device design. We are looking for a candidate who is a systems thinker, capable of working closely with an engineering team to validate developing technology and provide inputs for future evolution of the platform.

Job Location: Houston, TX with travel to support partnered research

What is Motif?

Motif is a medical device startup based in Houston, Texas. We are designing and developing minimally invasive electronic solutions for serious mental health conditions. Powered by our patent-pending methods for wireless power and data transmission, our goal is to create the smallest implantable brain stimulator and deliver therapies to patients by 2025.

We are an early-stage startup with funding from venture capital firms, grants, and private angel and founder investments.

Where are we going, and how can you help?

We are currently completing the development of our first minimally invasive neural stimulation system and preparing for future versions with additional functionality based on our platform technology.

We are looking for a Biomedical Scientist to help design, execute, and interpret early preclinical and first-in-human studies of relevant stimulation modalities and potential sensed biomarkers. The role will work closely with the engineering team to understand key scientific risks on the existing platform and design studies to drive targeted learning in these areas. The role will also work closely with clinical, scientific, and technical leaders to understand roadmap elements and drive scientific derisk to help enable future technology iterations in these areas. Examples might include designing studies in preclinical models using proxy measures of outcomes to refine therapeutic stimulation waveforms, designing intraoperative or short term studies in humans to gain insight in disease response and assess viable biomarkers, and contribute to the design of early feasibility study (EFS) protocols with a specific focus on rich data measures that enable future innovation.

The ideal candidate will have experience with neuromodulation studies in large animal models or humans, either executing them directly or partnering to design studies for execution by a broader team or clinical research organization. This includes experience collecting a variety of quantitative data sets from these studies and interpreting the results to generate insights on technology or therapy optimization. Experience in grant writing to support such exploratory work is a bonus.

The Right Partner

Motif is being built by highly dedicated people with passion for neurotechnology, clinical product development, and putting the patient first. We are looking for people with the same energy who will thrive in a high growth – high autonomy environment.

Does this sound like you?

• Do you want to create a future where technology enables better mental health care?
• Do you enjoy learning about and driving novel technology?
• Are you excited by executing studies that collect novel data to answer challenging scientific questions?
• Do you like testing hypotheses, solving problems, and moving quickly?
• Do you believe that openness and honesty are key to team success?

If yes to the above, then you may love working with Motif.

In this role, you will:

• Define preclinical and clinical early research studies to refine, validate, and expand therapeutic stimulation
• Execute studies at partnered labs and clinical sites in the US and abroad
• Gather novel objective data during studies, with a specific focus on sensed electrophysiology, and match it to existing gold-standard measures
• Analyze study results for insights into therapy refinement, useful biomarkers, and opportunities for technology refinement
• Support the pursuit of non-dilutive funding sources via the development of grant proposals
• Work with the clinical team on protocols and study design for EFS and pivotal trials, leveraging insights from early research study execution
• Work with the engineering and management team to strengthen regulatory, funding, and scientific deliverables with strong scientific basis from both novel work and a deep understanding of the existing literature

You Will Need:

• Minimum of a PhD in biomedical engineering, neural engineering, neuroscience,, or a similar technical degree applied to the biomedical field
• Experience in designing and executing early phase preclinical and clinical studies
• Deep knowledge of neuromodulation principles
• Experience with objective measures of symptom, disease state, or therapy response
• Communication and teamwork skills to work with different engineering disciplines and cross functional collaboration (quality, risk, reliability)
• To be located in the Houston, TX area
• Ability to travel internationally to support research outside of the US

It is a bonus if you have:

• Post Doc or 1-5 years of industry experience
• Success in grant writing across a variety of funding sources
• Experience interacting with patients for the execution of studies or the collection of data
• Experience with computational modeling of stimulation
• Experience with signal collection, signal processing, or signal analysis of electrophysiological data
• Experience with mental health disorders

Benefits

• Compensation will be a blend of salary and equity that is commensurate with experience
• Participation in our 401k plan
• Health/Medical Insurance

How to Apply

Please apply here: https://forms.clickup.com/14259175/f/dk4z7-370/JH3V63ZTPXE0CO3FG1

We are very excited to build the future of wireless implantables with you. Let’s use our powers for good.