Molecular Biology Scientist I II

Are you ready to own the design and optimization of CRISPR screens at Gordian Biotechnology to help us identify therapeutic targets and potential treatments for age-related diseases? We’ve shown that our platform predicts preclinical and clinical physiological responses from in vivo Mosaic screens. You’ll be at the center of a fast-paced team of scientific experts using our platform to run discovery screens for more therapeutic targets than ever before, in the most realistic models of disease!

The Destination:

Gordian Biotechnology is a therapeutics company whose mission is to cure age-related diseases and ultimately allow people to lead longer, healthier lives.

Traditional ex vivo screening methods have failed to produce effective treatments, as age-related diseases have complex causes that include interactions with the aged environment.

To address this problem, Gordian’s platform is the first and only to enable pooled in vivo tests at scale in our proprietary “patient avatars”. We are able to deliver and test hundreds of therapeutics in individual animals, and scale efficacy testing to cover every therapeutic target at the beginning of the drug discovery process (more info on our website). We can choose targets that really impact disease biology, to develop and commercialize therapies for the world’s deadliest diseases, and eventually for the processes of aging itself. 

The Journey:

Our mission is audacious, and the path will be full of both challenges and excitement. Two things characterize the Gordian experience: 1) We work as a team, with ownership in our own roles and trust in each other. 2) We strive for extraordinary outcomes, and in doing so grow our skills and capability.

Team – Relying on each other begins with transparency. We set clear goals, visibly connecting individuals and teams to our company objectives. This empowers each of us to make autonomous decisions about our work, knowing how they will affect the bigger picture. Our communication happens out in the open. We give and receive feedback from a perspective of helping each other grow, share mistakes, and ask for help.

Extraordinary – Every day, we ask ourselves ‘How could this process/outcome be even better?’. Knowing our overall mission, we do what we think helps us make the most progress, without asking for permission. We don’t shy away from big challenges or unknown territory, but find a way to excel. Our colleagues are amazing, both at what they do and as people. They inspire us to keep up, to not let them down, and be inspiring in return. 

Like any cutting-edge research environment, Gordian doesn't believe in a standard 9 to 5 day. We set ambitious project goals and support each other to meet them, while maintaining the balance individuals need to thrive and achieve excellence. Our team is geared towards helping each other out and maintaining a culture of intellectual and social fun. We like getting things done and keep standing meetings to a minimum. This year, in accordance with our unlimited vacation policy, each member took an average of 4.5 weeks of (offline) vacation, not including major holidays. We unwind with weekly team lunches, and support each others’ projects both experimentally and by ‘pre-mortem’ meetings to discuss possible failure modes and experimental design. 

If this environment sounds appealing, help us bring it to life. We are at the beginning of a long journey, and want both your ability and your personality along for the ride. Our culture is a source of great pride; it represents both who we are, and who we wish to be. 

You can dive deeper here: https://www.gordian.bio/culture/

About the Role:

Your mission as molecular biologist is to integrate your expert knowledge of CRISPR biology with our in vivo screening platform to develop and improve CRISPR-based screening in Gordian’s therapeutic areas of interest. Your work will use our technology to generate screen hits from potential targets chosen by our in-house disease experts. These hits will then move into preclinical development as potential treatments for these diseases. As the in-house expert of all things CRISPR your work will often take you into areas of science that Gordian has not yet pursued, where you’ll use papers and consultants to quickly get an overview and then design experiments with plenty of controls to simultaneously test multiple biological hypotheses.  Integrating CRISPR screens has many benefits that could make our platform even stronger, enhancing our capabilities, particularly in what targets are available for screening. The impact of your contributions will be profound, driving significant advancements in the therapeutic targets we pursue. 

Additionally, you'll design and test DNA constructs with new and improved features to accelerate our screening and validation. You’ll support the molecular biology team goals by managing and executing cloning projects for therapeutic screens and a variety of development projects. Molecular biology is often the bottleneck for initiating new projects, so you’ll need to combine attention to detail with a bias for action and your ability to manage projects effectively and efficiently will be key to your success. 

Gordian does a hefty amount of barcoded multiplexing, and most often you’ll be interpreting biology using sequencing data. Thriving in this environment means keeping a firm grasp of how individual molecules and their copies are moved through our workflows. 

In your first month at Gordian, you’ll get fully up to speed with our expression constructs, cloning pipeline and strategies for intervention library cloning. Additionally, you’ll familiarize yourself with Gordian’s current CRISPR screening strategy and plan experiments to better understand our screen data. You’ll also jump in to help the team with cloning. 

By two months, you’ll evaluate Gordian’s CRISPR approach and start to implement new proteins/approaches to upgrade our screening capabilities. You’ll strategize on how we analyze CRISPR screens, examining CRISPR screening data in two disease programs and initiate screening in another. And in three months you’ll manage and execute pipeline cloning projects autonomously without need for input from your team and manager. 

In six months, you’ll own Gordian’s CRISPR pipeline, from construct design, to in vivo strategy, to managing analysis of transcriptomic and gRNA assignment data. Your work in CRISPR screening will have generated hits in at least one disease area, and made progress with another, in parallel with platform optimization projects. 

About You: 

You have a history of successful execution, both in- and outside of your job description. You want a chance to do your best work, immerse yourself and excel, alongside people who will inspire you and whom you’ll be excited to spend your days with. 

You truly want to play a key role in an early-stage startup screening new targets for intractable diseases of aging: A fast-paced environment full of both uncertainty and new challenges, demanding relentless resourcefulness.

You have a solid understanding of CRISPR biology, including gRNA design/selection and experimental controls, and experience in either CRISPR screening or CRISPR technology development.

You’re fluent in HiFi and Golden Gate assembly. Bonus points for experience with pooled library cloning.

You design and execute multiple experimental threads to push multiple cloning projects forward at once and are comfortable owning the end to end management of scientific projects.

You’re a crisp communicator, and are able to seamlessly manage collaboration with cross functional partners and teams.

Bonus points for experience with computational biology, perturbation screening, one or more areas of RNA biology (e.g. transcriptional regulation), molecular quantification assays, cell culture, AAV biology and flow cytometry. 

The Details: 

Gordian aims to provide everything you need to thrive. Beyond our community and science, you’ll have enough equity to be a true stakeholder in the company, competitive salary, full health/dental/vision/life insurance, 401k with match, onsite lunch paid for 3 days a week, an onsite gym, whatever vacation you need to be at your peak, remote work flexibility, and access to world-class mentors and advisors to support your professional growth. Our building is in the heart of the biotech capital of South San Francisco.

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