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Senior Director, Cellular Models Technology Center

Palo Alto, CA

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 Investigators’ (PIs’) 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 has scaled to nearly 200 people. With $650M+ in committed funding and a state of the art new lab facility in Palo Alto, Arc will continue to grow quickly in the coming years.

About the position

We are seeking an exceptional scientific leader and researcher to build and manage the Cellular Models Center, one of the foundational Technology Centers at the Arc Research Institute. The Center will be internally funded and staffed by professional research scientists, with the overall mission of developing cellular models to study human disease. 

The center will be focused on developing and applying advanced human multi cell-type models to initially model Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders using cutting edge genetic screening approaches. The center will play a key role in our Institute-wide Alzheimer’s initiative that is a highly collaborative and ambitious effort across other Tech Centers as well as Core Laboratories at the Institute for high-throughput interrogation of disease mechanisms via investigation of the role of human genetic variants using gene editing and functional genomics, and eventual development of rational therapeutic strategies.

In addition, the center will engage in diverse collaborations with other Tech centers and Laboratories to develop and apply other human cellular models to investigate other complex diseases, including immune-related conditions as part of our overall mission.

About you

  • You are a scientific leader in developing and applying advanced human cellular models to investigate biology and disease. 
  • You think about gaps in this space and are excited to push the scientific frontier both on model development as well as model application to generate physiologically relevant and mechanistic insights.
  • You are a collaborator. You’re an expert in your domain and you greatly enjoy working successfully with scientists from other teams, labs and scientific domains to do more exciting science together.  
  • You love to learn. You love learning new skills and new domains in addition to staying up-to-date on the latest in your field.
  • You are a mentor. Being a great scientific leader doesn’t stop at hiring your team. You love mentoring and developing people both professionally and scientifically – both in your team as well as other scientific teams at Arc.

In this position, you will

  • Build out and manage a fully funded Cellular Models Technology Center of ~15 FTEs, including the leader of the existing Stem Cell Platform with 4 team members.
  • Actively recruit, mentor and provide guidance to research staff and develop them professionally and scientifically
  • Partner with Principal Investigators and other Technology Centers to advance research across the Institute and create a culture of collaboration and excellence
  • Drive forward all cellular modeling and investigation aspects of the Institute’s Alzheimer’s Initiative – including successfully managing and coordinating close collaborations with the Genome Engineering team, the Functional Genomics team, the Multi-Omics Center and the Computational tech center
  • Develop and innovate on state of the art protocols, resources, and processes for advanced cellular modeling and applications to interrogate complex human disease that are actively deployed at the Institute and distributed to the broader scientific community
  • Serve as a subject matter expert at Arc in key areas of focus, such as developmental biology, stem cell biology or neurobiology 
  • Engage in and manage varied internal and external research collaborations
  • Present research findings at institute meetings and external scientific conferences

Job Requirements

  • PhD, DVM/PhD, MD, or MD/PhD in a relevant field and 10 – 15+ years of relevant experience in industry and academic settings
  • Multiple years of people management experience leading and growing scientific teams, including several PhD level scientists
  • Experience managing teams developing and applying advanced stem cell derived models 
  • Experience with 3D modeling approaches (e.g. organoids or assembled spheroids)
  • Experience with applying functional and genomic analysis to derive novel biological and mechanistic disease insights from cellular models
  • Outstanding written and verbal communication skills across project planning, publications and verbal scientific presentations
  • The successful candidate will be an ambitious self-starter, be motivated to apply his/her skills to diverse projects and enjoy working in a fast-paced team environment.

The base salary range for this position is $243,750-$301,150. 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.

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