Senior Scientist - Assay Group Leader

At Recursion, we combine experimental biology, automation, and artificial intelligence to quickly and efficiently identify treatments for human diseases. We are hiring a Senior Scientist—with experience in biotechnology, assay development, and automation—to join our Predictive Pharmacology team to guide our data collection effort used to build predictive models that will accelerate drug discovery and development.

THE PROBLEMS YOU’LL SOLVE

On any given day you'll work with a team to develop, optimize and miniaturize biological assays spanning from enzyme inhibition to high throughput organoid systems to support our drug discovery efforts. You will also oversee the deployment of these assays to screen large libraries of compounds for use in predictive model building by our data science team. You will report directly to the VP of Biology and will have the opportunity to greatly influence this early discovery team. This role is ideal if you thrive on establishing excellent assays and generating large, high-quality data sets.

For this role, we are looking for people who are eager to:

• Lead - We want scientists who thrive on being in the driver’s seat. You will act as a project champion to ensure the team is focused on executing the best assays at scale.
• Deliver - We want scientists that understand what is needed to generate high-quality data sets. You will mentor and guide the team to establish and execute a wide variety of biological assays.
• Collaborate - We want scientists who are engaging. You will work cross functionally with team members from the Data Science, Software Engineering, and Product teams to drive our initiatives forward.

THE EXPERIENCE YOU’LL NEED

• A Ph.D. in a biological field
• 5-10 years of industry-based screening and assay development experience. Small molecule drug discovery experience is a plus
• Experience with automation and miniaturization of assays (1536-well format is a plus)
• A strong background in biochemistry and cell biology
• A record of outstanding past projects, publications, and collaborations

PERKS YOU’LL ENJOY

• Coverage of health, vision, and dental insurance premiums (in most cases 100%)
• 401(k) with generous matching (immediate vesting)
• Stock option grants
• Two one-week paid company closures (summer and winter) in addition to flexible, generous vacation/sick leave
• Commuter benefit and vehicle parking to ease your commute
• Complimentary chef-prepared lunches and well-stocked snack bars
• Generous paid parental leave (including adoptive)
• Fully paid gym membership to Metro Fitness, located just feet away from our new headquarters
• Gleaming new 100,000 square foot headquarters complete with a 70-foot climbing wall, showers, lockers, and bike parking

WHAT WE DO

We start with various human cell types in our automated laboratory, where we perturb biology 100k different ways each week (e.g. model a disease of interest, add a chemical compound, or some combination of those). We image the resulting cells using high throughput microscopy, resulting in about 2 million new images or greater than 20 terabytes of data each week. These data are analyzed using computer vision and machine learning methods that help us measure how cell morphology changes in subtle ways in each biological context. We can answer direct questions (e.g. are there compounds that rescues a disease-specific set of morphological changes), and over time as our dataset has increased, we can ask more complex questions across biology.

From the outset, our approach is agnostic to preconceived notions and dogma in biology, enabling Recursion to operate in novel target space. In order to move the discovery and development process more quickly and with higher confidence, we are expanding this platform to enable us to use our image-based dataset to make predictions about biological pathways, mechanism and how each potential therapeutic will perform in later IND-enabling studies, including ADME, Tox, etc. We are also evaluating what additional high-dimensional biological datasets could extend our predictive capacity with the aim to extend our predictive capabilities and further accelerate drug discovery and development.

Recursion is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. Recursion strictly prohibits and does not tolerate discrimination against applicants because of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex, pregnancy, gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender individual), age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, past, current, or prospective service in the uniformed services, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.