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Associate Director, Functional Genomics, GETC

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 Investigator’s (PI’s) 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 300 people to date with $650M+ in committed funding and a state of the art new lab facility in Palo Alto.

About the position

We are looking for an Associate Director to join our Genome Engineering Technology Center and lead the development & application of cutting-edge functional genomics approaches focused on the high-throughput interrogation of mammalian genomes, transcriptomes and epigenomes with rich multi-omic readouts. Your work will be central to Arc’s Virtual Cell Initiative where the goal is to build the first AI model that can accurately predict how a cell behaves based on its initial characteristics and any changes made to its genes. Success would significantly improve target identification for drug discovery and generally represent a major shift in our ability to diagnose, treat, and prevent diseases.

You will work closely with scientists and research associates in Arc’s Technology Centers and Core Investigator labs with a mission to develop technology to understand and treat complex genetic disease. The ideal candidate will have a passion for technology development and a proven track record in high-throughput CRISPR screens in mammalian cells.

This is an excellent opportunity for a highly motivated and curious scientist and team leader interested in the intersection of basic research and biotech product development. Title and compensation will be competitive with industry jobs relative to experience level and background.

About You

  • You are a leader and an expert in functional genomics – specifically in the domain of application of pooled screening approaches across cell types.
  • You are innovative. You think deeply about leveraging cutting-edge functional genomics tools and technologies to better understand human health.
  • 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. You believe that working on projects with scientists from different scientific backgrounds can lead to the most exciting and successful research.
  • You are a problem solver and don’t shy away from doing science across multiple levels, e.g. detailed troubleshooting or tackling ambitious, large-scale projects. You’re motivated to push what is possible in combining the highest data quality standards with speed and scale.
  • You are curious. You’re always eager to learn new biology, onboard new technologies and deepen your understanding of machine learning to expand your scientific horizon.

In this position, you will 

  • Manage your functional genomics team through mentoring and training a team of scientists and research associates.
  • Execute our ambitious, large-scale effort for single-cell perturbations across diverse cellular contexts in vitro to drive the development of the best-in-class, generalized ML model in this space, in close collaboration with other Arc technology teams.
  • Serve as a domain expert in functional genomics and pooled screens across the organization via a highly collaborative approach
  • Contribute your biomedical domain knowledge to applications of our virtual cell models to target identification in complex human disease, including Alzheimer’s disease. 
  • Successfully execute project management, data management, and team coordination across your group and larger collaborations to drive internal clarity and progress
  • Present data in internal and external meetings and through various forms of publication

Job Requirements

  • PhD in molecular biology, bioengineering, genomics, cell biology, or similar fields
  • 8+ years of post-PhD experience in academia or the biotechnology industry
  • 3+ years of previous managerial experience leading and growing scientific teams of 3+
  • Demonstrated ability to execute functional genomics screens with a track record of strong data quality
  • Deep understanding of CRISPR editing systems and their application to pooled screens
  • Experience with cell culture and engineering of diverse mammalian cell types 
  • Ability to develop optimal editing reagents, delivery vectors and custom guide RNA libraries for high-throughput pooled screens
  • Ability and desire to work in a fast-paced environment and be a team player
  • Interest in a close direct collaboration with our bioinformatics and machine learning teams to co-develop screen designs 

Preferred Qualifications

  • Prior experience in complex human disease biology to enable longer-term contributions to therapeutic evaluation and application of our virtual cell model is a plus.

The base salary range for this position is $160,000 to $207,500. 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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