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Research Associate

Employer
Gordian Biotechnology
Location
San Francisco, CA
Start date
Oct 26, 2021

View more

Discipline
Regulatory, Research/Documentation, Science/R&D, Research
Required Education
Bachelors Degree
Position Type
Full time
Hotbed
Biotech Bay

Are you ready for the challenge of learning both the how and why of running large therapeutic screens inside a living animal, and take on the responsibility of keeping the core engine of the company running?

 

THE DESTINATION:

Gordian Biotechnology is a therapeutics company focused on diseases of aging, the major unmet medical need of our generation.

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

To address this problem, Gordian’s platform delivers and tests hundreds of therapeutics in individual animals. We thus scale in vivo efficacy testing to cover every therapeutic target at the very beginning of the drug discovery process (more info on our website).

This lets us 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 ‘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 2.5 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/s/Values.pdf.

 

 

A :

ND 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: A fast-paced environment full of both uncertainty and new challenges, demanding relentless resourcefulness.

You have deep ambitions and broad curiosity. You are motivated by the opportunity to learn and grow endlessly within a meritocratic and empowering company, with no limits to advancement based on formal credentials.

Your mission as a research associate is to keep the core engine of the company running, thus directly increasing time for other employees to expand Gordian’s screening capabilities. This involves reliably executing Gordian laboratory protocols in 2-3 of the following areas: NGS library preparation, plasmid cloning and production, cell culture, and mouse colony maintenance and experimentation. If you have experience in several of these areas but are not yet expert, you will quickly become so with the guidance and mentorship of your colleagues. By 3 months, you will have mastered Gordian protocols in 2 of the laboratory focus areas and will execute these protocols with >95% success rate at the same speed and output quality as your mentor(s).

Moving forward, your continued growth will be expected and supported, both in scientific development and expansion of technical expertise.

Each of the technical areas listed above represents a critical part of the core engine at Gordian, and requires careful execution and dedication to quality data. You will be working on multiple projects at once, and seamless communication across departments is essential. You will need to pay excellent attention to experiment descriptions and required outputs, and will be responsible for maintaining records and databases for samples produced in this role. You will strive for extraordinary by addressing any issues, errors, or optimizations promptly and openly to ensure maximum trust of data produced in this role. On the technical side, you should have experience in 2-3 of the following

 

areas:

● Next Generation Sequencing library preparation: taking sample(s) from cDNA to sequencing-ready library. Familiarity with operation of Illumina sequencers also desired.

● Plasmid cloning and production: standard cloning techniques including PCR, gel electrophoresis, bacterial transformation, picking colonies, mini/midi-prep.

Experience in plasmid design/maintenance on Benchling and Sanger sequencing analysis also desired.

● Cell culture: mammalian cell culture including making and changing media, splitting cells, transfection.

● Mouse colony maintenance and manipulation: comfortable handling and working with mice, and experience in 2 of the following - weighing/feeding mouse cohorts, dosing (ie. gavage, intravenous, intraperitoneal, or subcutaneous injection), blood draws, survival surgeries, necropsy/dissection.

Longer term laboratory experience (>1yr), experience parallelizing large sample sets, and prior understanding of large-scale screens are all pluses.

 

 

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, 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 labs are in the Dogpatch, near UCSF Mission Bay.

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