Scientist, Virtual Cell Initiative - T Cell Screening

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 a highly motivated and independent immunologist and cell engineer with leading contributions in (CAR) T cell screening. The successful candidate will join Paul Datlinger’s team within the Genome Engineering Technology Center at Arc, and will lead primary T cell screening for Arc’s Virtual Cell Initiative. You will play a critical role in the Institute’s Virtual Cell Initiative, which aims to create the first foundational model that makes accurate predictions of cellular states. You will pioneer its application to cancer immunotherapy. You will join a team with a track record of foundational contributions in the field, including some of the first studies of mammalian CRISPR genome engineering (CRISPRi, a, ko, Cas13), single-cell CRISPR screens (CROP-seq), T cell screening (SLICE, PoKI-seq), and DNA foundation modeling (Evo).

You will design and execute pioneering synthetic biology screens in collaboration with Arc’s AI and computational biology researchers, and invent novel technologies for non-invasive, real-time functional genomics. This is a unique opportunity for a creative scientist to make a significant contribution at the intersection of biology and machine learning. If you’re ready to shape the foundation of our Virtual Cell Initiative and its application to T cell immunotherapies, we invite you to apply for this exciting role. We encourage both academic and industry scientists to apply, as this role involves innovative technology development and industry-scale cell engineering and single-cell profiling.

About you

• You are passionate about T cell screening, cellular immunotherapies, and synthetic biology
• You are innovative and follow the latest industry trends and clinical studies for cancer immunotherapies
• You are driven by disruptive technology development and are excited to build a virtual cell model and explore its applications for T cell immunotherapy
• You possess a deep and intuitive understanding of cancer immunology and T cell biology
• You’re ready to lead a highly visible, multi-disciplinary project and can effectively translate between cell engineers, biotechnologists and AI scientists
• You are an engaging speaker and enjoy sharing new data through publications and at international conferences

In this position you will

• Build a world-leading platform for single-cell screens in primary human T cells for Arc’s Virtual Cell Initiative
• Closely collaborate with Arc’s AI team on model architectures, and iterate quickly between data production & model training
• Devise and evaluate applications of AI virtual cells for cancer immunotherapy
• Invent methods for live genomics, where T cells report genetic perturbations, immune receptors, and transcripts in real time
• Perform in vivo screens in mouse T cell immunotherapy models
• Support pooled optical screens in primary T cells in vitro and in tissues
• Develop scalable and automated T cell engineering workflows using flow electroporators and bioreactors

Requirements

• PhD in Molecular Biology, Medicine, Genomics, or a similar field. Post-PhD experience is a plus
• Experience working in a cutting-edge T cell immunotherapy setting, such as a renowned academic lab or innovative company, documented through publications, preprints or patents
• Extensive experience with T cell isolation, culture, transduction, electroporation
• Track record of innovative technology development for primary T cell engineering, in particular for CRISPR screening (knock-out, knock-down, knock-in, ORFs, base editing, prime editing, CRISPRoff)
• Extensive experience with flow cytometry and cell sorting, including the design of custom panels for T cell phenotypes
• Deep knowledge of T cell and cancer biology and the clinical limitations of cellular therapies
• Experience with mouse immunotherapy models
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to accurately document data, experiments, and projects
• Strong time management skills with the ability to manage your own workflow independently

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to design and analyze CRISPR screens and single-cell experiments with R or Python is a strong plus
• Experience with in vivo CRISPR screens is a strong plus
• Experience with single-cell profiling or perturbation screening is a strong plus
• Experience with mouse T cell engineering is a plus

The base salary range for this position is $121,500 to $134,750. 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.