About Arc Institute
The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution that conducts curiosity-driven basic science and technology development to understand and treat complex human diseases. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Arc is an independent research organization founded on the belief that many important research programs will be enabled by new institutional models. Arc operates in partnership with Stanford University, UCSF, and UC Berkeley.
While the prevailing university research model has yielded many tremendous successes, we believe in the importance of institutional experimentation as a way to make progress. These include:
- Funding: Arc will fully fund Core Investigator’s (PI’s) research groups, liberating scientists from the typical constraints of project-based external grants.
- Technology: Biomedical research has become increasingly dependent on complex tooling. Arc Technology Centers develop, optimize and deploy rapidly advancing experimental and computational technologies in collaboration with Core Investigators.
- Support: Arc aims to provide first-class support—operationally, financially and scientifically—that will enable scientists to pursue long-term high risk, high reward research that can meaningfully advance progress in disease cures, including neurodegeneration, cancer, and immune dysfunction.
- Culture: We believe that culture matters enormously in science and that excellence is difficult to sustain. We aim to create a culture that is focused on scientific curiosity, a deep commitment to truth, broad ambition, and selfless collaboration.
Arc scaled to nearly 100 people in its first year. With $650M+ in committed funding and a state of the art new lab facility in Palo Alto, Arc will continue to grow quickly to several hundred in the coming years.
About the position
The Hsu and Konermann Labs at the Arc Institute are seeking applications for a Scientist or Senior Scientist position to be based at the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, CA, working in the areas of Molecular Technology Development, Genome Engineering, and Synthetic Biology. Our groups draw from a palette of technologies including DNA and RNA-targeting CRISPR systems, single-cell genomics, and high-throughput methods for protein engineering to tackle big questions in neurodegeneration, synthetic biology, gene & cell therapy, and beyond.
Some of our ongoing projects and general interests include:
- Early-stage discovery and development of new genome, transcriptome, and epigenome engineering tools in mammalian cells (e.g. inventing new integrase systems for targeted insertion of large genetic payloads)
- Developing parts, sensors, and concepts for synthetic biology (e.g. engineering cell states, controlling or tracing cellular communication, development of therapeutic circuits, etc.)
- Applications of machine learning and protein language models to accelerate molecular technology parameters (efficiency, specificity, etc.)
About You
- You are driven by science. The world of science is filled with so many unanswered questions and the opportunity to address these questions brings you purpose.
- You are a collaborator. You love working with people of different backgrounds and brainstorming ideas on how these questions can be addressed.
- You are curious. As much as you love answering questions, you also love creating/asking new ones.
- You are an optimizer. In research, there’s always a race against the clock. You care deeply about making every step of the way as close to perfect as possible but also as quick and efficient as possible.
- You build tools. As much as you love answering specific scientific questions, you also love creating technology and platforms that are scalable and useful in many different scientific application areas.
In this position you will
- Work as part of a fully funded team to invent, develop, and benchmark molecular technologies.
- Collaborate closely with the PIs on planning and executing scientific research projects.
- Lead key research projects while mentoring students and research assistants; provide guidance on project strategy, experimental design, data analysis, and troubleshooting.
- Keep up-to-date on advances in the field by reading the literature and attending key conferences.
- Develop and provide training to lab personnel as needed, develop standardized protocols for the labs.
- Assist with preparing manuscripts, abstracts, and presentations
Job requirements
- PhD and (optional) postdoctoral experience in a relevant life sciences or engineering field
- Experience with high-throughput molecular biology assays and techniques. Expertise in pooled library development is preferred.
- Mammalian cell line engineering experience
- Experience with NGS and flow cytometry techniques and data analysis
- Strong written and verbal communication skills is required for research presentations, preparing SOPs, and publications
- Experience and enthusiasm for mentoring research trainees, including graduate students and RAs
- The successful candidate will be an ambitious self-starter, be motivated to apply his/her skills to diverse projects and enjoy working in a collaborative and fast-paced team environment
The base salary range for this position is $112,500 to $148,500. These amounts reflect the range of base salary that the Institute reasonably would expect to pay a new hire or internal candidate for this position. The actual base compensation paid to any individual for this position may vary depending on factors such as experience, market conditions, education/training, skill level, and whether the compensation is internally equitable, and does not include bonuses, commissions, differential pay, other forms of compensation, or benefits. This position is also eligible to receive an annual discretionary bonus, with the amount dependent on individual and institute performance factors.
