Participating Companies

About AveXis:

Ready to join a team committed to moving gene therapies into the clinical and commercial settings for patients and families devastated by rare neurological genetic diseases? AveXis is advancing cutting-edge science to treat rare and life-threatening genetic diseases starting with our clinical-stage, proprietary gene therapy candidate, AVXS-101(ZOLGENSMA®). We are in the midst of an incredible journey and are looking for passionate individuals to join us on this important mission.

AveXis,  is a clinical-stage gene therapy company, dedicated to developing and commercializing novel treatments for patients suffering from rare and life-threatening neurological genetic diseases.

Internship Length:

Twelve (12) weeks.

Internship Location:

Bannockburn, IL.

Internship Description:

AveXis, Inc., a Novartis Company, is a clinical-stage gene therapy company, dedicated to developing and commercializing novel treatments for patients suffering from rare and lifethreatening neurological genetic diseases. Our initial product candidate, AVXS-101, is our proprietary gene therapy product candidate currently in development for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA, Type 1, the leading genetic cause of infant mortality, and for the treatment of SMA Type 2. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, has granted AVXS-101 Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of all types of SMA and Breakthrough Therapy Designation, as well as Fast Track Designation for the treatment of SMA Type 1. In addition to developing AVXS-101 to treat SMA Type 1 and Type 2, we also plan to develop other novel treatments for rare neurological diseases, including Rett syndrome (RTT) and a genetic form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) caused by mutations in the superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) gene.

Clinical Development is the department within AveXis that is responsible for the planning, execution, and oversight of studies conducted in humans (clinical studies). The purpose of these studies is to determine the safety and efficacy of new treatments for disease. The ultimate goal of evaluating new treatments for diseases is for potential approved by the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory authorities OR to determine at an early time point that the new treatment is not effective or have unacceptable risks.

The Summer Intern will support one or more clinical scientists in the planning, execution, or oversight of clinical studies. Potential activities may include the development of new protocols for clinical studies, evaluate data from either completed or ongoing studies, provide additional scientific support to the clinical scientists, and/or provide scientific or clinical support to interactions with regulatory agencies such as the FDA. This may include the evaluation or analysis of safety or efficacy data from ongoing or completed clinical studies.

About Sirenas:

The natural world is the most ancient and successful source of medicines. In late 2015, Sirenas launched its proprietary drug discovery technology, Atlantis^™, to discover the therapeutic potential of privileged chemistry hidden in the natural, complex environments of the global microbiome. Atlantis^™ uses deep data mining approaches to uncover the relationships between small molecule metabolites from global microbiome collections and disease relevant biological assays. This process enables Sirenas to efficiently gain insights into the therapeutic potential of each molecule more rapidly than traditional approaches. Sirenas leverages its Atlantis^™ technology in the discovery of leads for transformative medicines in unmet disease needs across the globe.

Internship Length:

Twelve (12) weeks.

Internship Location:

San Diego, CA.

Internship Description:

The focus of this internship will be on purification and identification of very minor quantities of biologically active, unknown natural products. A background in natural products is preferred. Students will be trained in Sirenas extraction techniques of marine invertebrates (sponges, cyanobacteria, tunicates, and macroaglae), laboratory equipment including, but not limited to, CombiFlash Rf, LCMS, HPLC, and NMR spectroscopy. Successful candidates may learn and apply big data analysis techniques using Sirenas’ AtlantisTM technology and perform molecular networking analyses during this training internship. Candidates will have the opportunity to fine tune analytical skills, present research results in team meetings, and work in a fast-paced discovery environment.

About Unnatrual Products:

Unnatural Products is an early stage drug discovery platform based in Santa Cruz, CA. At UNP we focus on developing cell permeable cyclic peptides to modulate intracellular protein-protein interactions as drug targets. UNP’s platform is a marriage of ML powered computational design and a parallel synthesis platform that allows us to build smart, focused collections of compounds to rapidly evolve initial hit compounds into drug candidates. We are a small, close knit team that is looking for passionate people.

Internship Length:

Twelve (12) weeks.

Internship Location:

Santa Cruz, CA.

Internship Description:

The focus of the internship will be on continuing to develop our platform and to work on our current pre-clinical oncology pipeline programs.

Chemoinformatics – Working chemical and empirical data to develop and improve models for physiochemical properties.

Medicinal Chemistry – Design and synthesis of compound tranches to to elucidate SAR and improve potency and PK of hit compounds.

Peptide Synthesis – Solid phase peptide synthesis and optimization of compounds with challenging non-natural amino acid like units.

Assay development – High throughput format pure protein fluorescence and or luminescence based assay development for interrogating protein-protein interactions.

LC/MS Analysis – Routine and automated LC/MS analysis of crude synthetic mixtures using a mixture of commercial and in-house tools.