Current openings at Arc Institute

About Arc Institute The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution conducting 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 fully funds 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 over 350 people to date. 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 The Jain Lab is looking for motivated, hard-working and curious applicants. At a high level, we study how organisms interact with their environments – how “what we breathe” and “what we eat” affects our metabolism and disease progression. More specifically, we are focused on oxygen and vitamin/cofactor metabolism. We recently discovered that chronic hypoxia (equivalent to living in the mountains of Peru or Nepal) can serve as a therapy for mitochondrial disease. This approach is currently in clinical trials. This work has inspired a broader set of research directions ranging from fundamental biochemistry to animal physiology. The questions we ask: How do cells and organisms sense oxygen or vitamin levels? Are there novel oxygen sensors and vitamin sensors to be found? How does the body adapt to variations in oxygen levels? Or vitamin levels? When the supply and demand of oxygen or vitamins becomes mismatched, how does this contribute to disease? Can we “turn the oxygen and vitamin dials” as creative new therapies? What is the most practical form of turning these concepts into translatable therapies? The approach we take: CRISPR screens, metabolomics, classical biochemistry/molecular biology, animal physiology and beyond. Post-docs will be encouraged to lead independent projects resulting in high impact publications, present at conferences and prepare for long-term careers in academia or industry. About you You are extremely curious and self-motivated to push the boundaries of biomedical research. You thrive in a fast-paced environment while conducting rigorous and impactful research. You are intellectually independent and are able to design new research directions and projects (with input from your PI). You are eager to learn and adapt new techniques. You are excited by solving puzzles that have a translational impact.  In this position you will Find new functions for enzymes or cofactors (vitamins) Contribute to our molecular understanding of how key metabolites are sensed by the body. Develop novel therapeutic strategies for nutrient-based therapies. Collaborate with post-docs and students to understand how enzymes and metabolites interact for key biochemical functions. Publish, present, and represent that lab in journals and conferences. Present at lab meetings, and participate in Arc-wide activities (seminars, symposiums, etc). Requirements PhD in metabolism, animal physiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, genomics, or related field  Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced environment and be both an independent thinker and a highly collaborative team player. The minimum base salary for this position is $80,000. Base salary for this role is determined by how many months of relevant postdoctoral experience a successful candidate has. Base salary for this role is not negotiable.

About Arc Institute The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution conducting 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 fully funds 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, multimodal tools. 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 over 350 people to date. 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 The Gilbert Lab is looking for motivated, hard-working and curious applicants. Our expertise is in synthetic biology, functional genomics and epigenetics. We have a long standing interest in using CRISPR approaches to control transcription. We are focused on utilizing our expertise to tackle big problems in human biology such as how cellular identity and the epigenome are  determined and maintained. Lastly, we are focused on leveraging our expertise in epigenetics and synthetic biology to design new therapeutic strategies in the context of cancer, viral biology and neurodegeneration. The questions we ask: How are genes turned on and off? How are mechanisms of epigenetic memory established and maintained? Which genes drive complex disease phenotypes and what are their mechanisms? How can we modulate these for therapeutic means?  How can we use synthetic biology approaches to discover therapeutic strategies and design new gene, protein and small molecule therapeutics? How can we deliver genetic medicines to the right cell types in the body? The approach we take: CRISPR screens, high throughput synthetic biology, perturb-seq, in vitro disease models including iPSC models and primary cells, in vivo disease models. Post-docs will be encouraged to lead independent projects resulting in high impact publications, present at conferences and prepare for long-term careers in academia or industry. About you You are extremely curious and self-motivated to push the boundaries of biotechnology and/or biomedical research. You thrive in a fast-paced environment while conducting rigorous and impactful research. You are intellectually independent and are able to design new research directions and projects (with input from your PI). You are eager to learn and adapt new techniques. You are excited by solving puzzles that have a translational impact and/or creating new therapeutic approaches.  In this position you will Design, perform and analyze experiments  Keep appropriate experimental records and documentation Analyze results with the Principal Investigator General lab maintenance as well as operation and maintenance of equipment and instruments. Collaborate with post-docs, students and employees May mentor/train research associates, technicians, and students.  Publish, present, and represent that lab in journals and conferences. Present at lab meetings, and participate in Arc-wide activities (seminars, symposiums, etc). Requirements Doctorate (MD, PhD, VMD, or DDS) in the area directly related to the field of research specialization.  Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced environment and be both an independent thinker and a highly collaborative team player. The minimum base salary for this position is $80,000. Base salary for this role is determined by how many months of relevant postdoctoral experience a successful candidate has. Base salary for this role is not negotiable.

About Arc Institute The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution conducting 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 fully funds 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 over 350 people to date. 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 The Hsu Lab is seeking applications for a Scientist at the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, CA, focusing on the development and applications of novel genome engineering technologies. We recently discovered and developed Bridge Recombinases, which are naturally occurring RNA-guided DNA recombinases that can programmably insert, excise, and invert DNA (Nature, 2024 and Science, 2025). The candidate will drive the next phase of Bridge Recombinase evolution. Building on our work establishing IS110 and ISCro4 as programmable tools, you will lead efforts to engineer bridge RNAs and recombinases for megabase-scale genome modifications, therapeutic gene circuit integration, and scarless disease correction. You will tackle critical challenges in RNA structural design, protein evolution, and off-target minimization to bridge the gap between basic discovery and clinical application. To achieve this, you will work in collaboration with biochemists, structural biologists and computational scientists in the lab, with the ultimate goal of enabling therapeutic applications in human cells and aiding genome design. About You You are driven by science. The world of science is filled with so many unanswered questions and the opportunity to address these questions brings you purpose.  You are a collaborator. You love working with people of different backgrounds and brainstorming ideas on how these questions can be addressed.  You are intellectually independent and self-motivated to push the boundaries of novel technologies. You are an optimizer. In research, there’s always a race against the clock. You care deeply about making every step of the way as close to perfect as possible but also as quick and efficient as possible. You build tools. As much as you love answering specific scientific questions, you also love creating technology and platforms that are scalable and useful in many different scientific application areas. In this position you will Lead one or multiple scientific projects in molecular technology development including planning, execution, analysis of experiments.  Collaborate closely with the PIs on planning and executing scientific research projects. Keep up-to-date on advances in the field by reading the literature and attending key conferences. Mentor Research Associates and/or work with graduate students and other scientists in the lab Develop and provide training to lab personnel as needed, develop standardized protocols for the labs. Publish preprints and journal articles; present findings at conferences Job Requirements PhD in a relevant life sciences or engineering field Experience with different molecular biology assays and techniques, including high-throughput cloning strategies (e.g., Golden Gate, Gibson) and library generation Mammalian cell culture experience  Experience in protein engineering, directed evolution (e.g., PACE, DMS), or rational protein design  Prior experience in developing genome engineering technologies (CRISPR, recombinases, transposases, etc.) preferred Strong written and verbal communication skills  Experience and enthusiasm for mentoring research trainees, including graduate students and RAs The successful candidate will be an ambitious self-starter, an innovative and meticulous researcher, and enjoy working in a collaborative and fast-paced team environment The base salary range for this position is $121,250 to $150,000. 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.