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Associate Scientist/ Senior Associate Scientist

Brisbane, California, United States

About Xaira Therapeutics

Xaira is an innovative biotech startup focused on leveraging AI to transform drug discovery and development. The company is leading the development of generative AI models to design protein and antibody therapeutics, enabling the creation of medicines against historically hard-to-drug molecular targets. It is also developing foundation models for biology and disease to enable better target elucidation and patient stratification. Collectively, these technologies aim to continually enable the identification of novel therapies and to improve success in drug development.

About the Role

As an associate scientist, you will be a crucial member of the discovery biology team, comprising highly creative and talented individuals with exceptional expertise in biologics discovery. This group is responsible for establishing disease relevant cellular models and assays, validating targets, and interrogating mechanisms of action to drive discovery projects and develop a differentiated therapeutics pipeline. You will work collaboratively with functional genomics, proteomics, protein design and engineering, and computational scientists. You are an enthusiastic cell biologist with extensive experience in target validation, mechanism elucidation, and assay development with a record of generating high quality data in support of drug discovery efforts. You are conscientious, detail-oriented, organized, productive, and dedicated to collaborating closely with colleagues to drive projects forward.

Key Responsibilities  

  • Design, execution, and interpretation of cell-based studies to validate target function in disease and to characterize pharmacology and mechanism of target modulators 
  • Development and optimization of cell-based assays for screening of small or large molecules
  • Cell line development (stable overexpression/KO cell lines, reporter assays, etc.)
  • Collaboration across cross-functional teams to deliver new mechanistic insights and advance discovery efforts
  • Interpretation and presentation of experimental findings at research meetings
  • Maintenance of accurate and detailed records of experiments, protocols, and results in accordance with company standards

Qualifications  

  • PhD in Immunology, Cancer Biology, Cell & Molecular Biology or related field, industry experience preferred 
  • Bachelor’s degree in biological science plus a minimum of 10 years of industry experience
  • Expert culturing both adherent and suspension mammalian cells, including primary mouse or human cells
  • Proficient with common cellular assays including proliferation, apoptosis, cytotoxicity, and reporter assays
  • Experienced in qPCR, Western blot, ICC, IHC, ELISA, FRET, flow cytometry and other standard molecular biology techniques
  • Adept at gene silencing (e.g., RNAi), gene editing (e.g., CRISPR), and overexpression (e.g., lentivirus, BacMam)
  • Expertise in cell assay development for single and multi-pass transmembrane proteins 
  • Experience with co-culture systems (e.g. cancer/immune cells)
  • Experience with 3D spheroid or organoid models
  • Experience assaying primary immune cell activation (e.g. flow cytometry) or with cytokine release assays
  • Experience with T-cell dependent cellular cytotoxicity (TDCC), antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis (ADCP), antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) assays, or complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) assays
  • Experience miniaturizing cellular assays for automated systems
  • Experience with plasmid/vector design
  • Experience with single cell cloning

Compensation

We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, seeking to provide an open, flexible, and friendly work environment to empower employees and provide them with a platform to develop their long-term careers. A Summary of Benefits is available for all applicants. The base pay range for this position is expected to be $92,000 - $135,000 annually; however, the base pay offered may vary depending on the market, job-related knowledge, skills and capabilities, and experience.

Xaira Therapeutics an equal-opportunity employer. We believe that our strength is in our differences. Our goal to build a diverse and inclusive team began on day one, and it will never end.

TO ALL RECRUITMENT AGENCIES: Xaira Therapeutics does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias or employees. XairaTherapeutics is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

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