Senior Scientist - In Vivo Pharmacology

At Recursion, we combine experimental biology, automation, and artificial intelligence to quickly and efficiently identify treatments for human diseases. As we drive our programs toward the clinic, we are actively hiring a Research Scientist for our In Vivo Pharmacology team to help us rapidly expand our portfolio and move our science forward.

THE PROBLEMS YOU’LL SOLVE

If you are a scientist who is motivated to have the largest impact on biological science in the shortest amount of time, you have just found your dream job! This role is ideal for someone who is creative, innovative, and able to handle multiple project and deadlines simultaneously. You will identify animal models with maximum relevance to diseases of interest to Recursion, orchestrate evaluation of each of our leads in the most appropriate models, and work with Business Development to advance our compounds to the clinic.  

By working closely with our Disease Biology and Predictive Pharmacology scientists, you'll know in advance what leads are most promising in our pipeline. You will identify animal models and design efficacy studies for the evaluation of our most promising lead compounds.  Because we do not currently conduct any animal models on-site, you will need to find and coordinate sub-awards, sponsorships, or contracts with academic and industrial partners. You'll coordinate with all our diverse sponsors (academic labs and CRO’s) on study design, execution of study pre-work, and review of IACUC protocols. You will then evaluate and interpret study results that drive decisions on additional studies. Finally, you'll have the opportunity to work with our BD and legal teams to generate summaries of our data for partnering, as well as to protect our intellectual process across MTAs and other legal documentation. Your goal will be to search for models of diseases that have high unmet need and be challenged to follow the science with the patient in mind.

For this role, we are looking for scientists who are passionate about:

• Research- Once we have identified a disease for screening, you will develop a literature-based understanding of the disease, identify the most-appropriate animal model and design studies to evaluate therapeutic agents for our disease hits.
• Virtual Study Execution -Prior experience in model development and in vivo study execution is critical to this role. A hands-on understanding of the procedures involved is essential for designing clear and reproducible study results.
• Collaboration- In addition to collaborating with your peers in Biology, you will also work cross functionally with members of the Product, Development, Business Development, Data Science, and Engineering Teams.  Excellent interpersonal skills are also necessary for collaborating with a variety of external stakeholders (CRO’s, academic labs, foundations, etc.).

THE EXPERIENCE YOU’LL NEED

• Extensive experience in animal handling and in vivo study design/execution. Having firsthand knowledge of the tasks you will be directing your external collaborators to complete is essential
• A PhD or industry experienced MS/BS with a history of in vivo study execution
• Experience with external in vivo study execution is highly desirable
• Demonstrated organization skills and an ability to simultaneously manage many projects.
• Creative and independent thinking skills, along with extreme intellectual curiosity and internal motivation
• Excellent oral, written and collaborative skills

THE 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. Potential  treatments from this platform are then evaluated by our discovery biology team, who develop a literature-based understanding of the disease and use traditional wet-lab approaches to confirm and prioritize the hits.

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.