About Arc Institute

The Arc Institute is a 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 scaled to nearly 100 people in its first year. With $650M+ in committed funding and a state of the art new lab facility in Palo Alto, Arc will continue to grow quickly to several hundred in the coming years.

The Hsu Lab and Konermann Lab at the Arc Institute (https://arcinstitute.org), UC Berkeley Bioengineering, and Stanford Biochemistry are seeking applications for a joint staff research scientist to be based at the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, CA, working in the areas of RNA-Protein Biochemistry and Structural Biology. Our groups draw from a palette of technologies including DNA and RNA-targeting CRISPR systems, single-cell genomics, pooled genetic screens including Perturb-seq, and high-throughput methods for protein engineering to tackle big questions in neurodegeneration, synthetic biology, gene & cell therapy, and beyond.

Some of our recent projects include:

Ongoing projects in the lab include developing new computational methods to investigate the host-pathogen arms race, discovery and development of new genome editing technologies, high-throughput genetic screens, and applications in mammalian synthetic biology and brain disease modeling.

Compensation will be competitive with industry jobs relative to experience level and background.

In this position, the Senior Scientist will:

• Work as part of a fully funded team to functionally characterize and engineer genome editing effector molecules using biochemical, structural, and genomic approaches, and to conduct molecular optimization to create new genome engineering technologies
• Purify and characterize protein-nucleic acid complexes using functional biochemistry approaches
• Design new project directions in close collaboration with the PIs
• Lead key research projects while mentoring students and research assistants; provide guidance on project strategy, experimental design, data analysis, and troubleshooting
• Keep up-to-date on advances in the field by reading the literature and attending key conferences
• Develop and provide training to lab personnel as needed, develop standardized protocols for the labs
• Assist with preparing manuscripts, abstracts, presentations

Job Requirements:

• PhD degree and postdoctoral experience in a relevant life sciences or engineering field
• Specific expertise areas that would be an asset to this role include: protein and nucleic acid functional biochemistry, protein purification, cryo-EM, investigation of nucleic acid binding proteins, molecular or directed evolution, and protein engineering
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills is required for research presentations, SOP development, and publications
• Experience and enthusiasm for mentoring research trainees
• The successful candidate will be an ambitious self-starter, be motivated to apply his/her skills to diverse projects and enjoy working in a collaborative and fast-paced team environment

The base salary range for this position is $130,500 to $148,500. 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, internal equity, market conditions, education/training, and skill level, 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.