Senior Scientist, Ex Vivo Systems And Assay Development

Are you ready to play a pivotal role in critical ex vivo validation experiments and research activities to support Gordian's development of novel drug candidates?  We've shown that our platform predicts preclinical and clinical physiological responses from in vivo Mosaic screens. You'll be at the center of a fast-paced team of scientific experts using our platform to run discovery screens for more therapeutic targets than ever before, in the most realistic models of disease! The Destination: Gordian Biotechnology is a therapeutics company whose mission is to cure age-related diseases and ultimately allow people to lead longer, healthier lives. Traditional ex vivo screening methods have failed to produce effective treatments, as age-related diseases have complex causes that include interactions with the aged environment. To address this problem, Gordian's platform is the first and only to enable pooled in vivo tests at scale in our proprietary "patient avatars". We are able to deliver and test hundreds of therapeutics in individual animals, and scale efficacy testing to cover every therapeutic target at the beginning of the drug discovery process (more info on our website). We can choose targets that really impact disease biology, to develop and commercialize therapies for the world's deadliest diseases, and eventually for the processes of aging itself.  The Journey: Our mission is audacious, and the path will be full of both challenges and excitement. Two things characterize the Gordian experience: 1) We work as a team, with ownership in our own roles and trust in each other. 2) We strive for extraordinary outcomes, and in doing so grow our skills and capability. Team – Relying on each other begins with transparency. We set clear goals, visibly connecting individuals and teams to our company objectives. This empowers each of us to make autonomous decisions about our work, knowing how they will affect the bigger picture. Our communication happens out in the open. We give and receive feedback from a perspective of helping each other grow, share mistakes, and ask for help. Extraordinary – Every day, we ask ourselves 'How could this process/outcome be even better?'. Knowing our overall mission, we do what we think helps us make the most progress, without asking for permission. We don't shy away from big challenges or unknown territory, but find a way to excel. Our colleagues are amazing, both at what they do and as people. They inspire us to keep up, to not let them down, and be inspiring in return.  Like any cutting-edge research environment, Gordian doesn't believe in a standard 9 to 5 day. We set ambitious project goals and support each other to meet them, while maintaining the balance individuals need to thrive and achieve excellence. Our team is geared towards helping each other out and maintaining a culture of intellectual and social fun. We like getting things done and keep standing meetings to a minimum. This year, in accordance with our unlimited vacation policy, each member took an average of 4.5 weeks of (offline) vacation, not including major holidays. We unwind with weekly team lunches, and support each others' projects both experimentally and by 'pre-mortem' meetings to discuss possible failure modes and experimental design.  If this environment sounds appealing, help us bring it to life. We are at the beginning of a long journey, and want both your ability and your personality along for the ride. Our culture is a source of great pride; it represents both who we are, and who we wish to be.  You can dive deeper here. About the Role: Your primary mission as Senior Scientist, Ex Vivo Systems and Assay Development will be to design, execute, and optimize ex vivo experiments that validate key targets from our screening platform. You will work with therapeutic leads across pulmonary fibrosis (PF), heart failure (HF), and MASH programs to set up and refine complex human tissue models, facilitating early validation or elimination of therapeutic targets. You will take ownership of ex vivo cultures, developing assays that evaluate safety, efficacy, and mechanisms of action, ensuring target validation occurs with precision and speed. Additionally, you'll collaborate with our disease biology heads to enhance workflow processes, establish SOPs, and help streamline data-driven decision-making. Your focus at Gordian is for the validation or elimination of screen hits to happen as early as possible. Gordian is unique in that our in vivo discovery delivers results at a far greater scale than even the largest pharma company. This means that we aren't dependent on the success of a single target, but can survey the landscape of disease biology for the most promising target (or combination of targets) before moving to therapeutic development. Through close collaboration with disease leads, you'll manage experimental schedules and develop in vivo and ex vivo assays that advance our validation goals across PF, HF, and MASH programs. In your first month, you'll work closely with the Head of Lung Biology to develop expertise in generating and maintaining human lung tissue slices for the pulmonary fibrosis (PF) program. You'll also collaborate with the Head of Cardiac Biology and consultants to create a plan for establishing human myocyte tissue slices for the heart failure (HF) program, setting the foundation for a new ex vivo culture system. Additionally, you'll take over the coordination of human donor samples across all disease programs, ensuring efficient sample handling and timely integration into research workflows. Within three months, you'll lead the first round of efficacy testing on 20 targets in human lung slice cultures (PF) and achieve robust human myocyte tissue slice cultures for the HF program. You'll also refine and optimize the delivery of therapeutic targets to myocyte cultures, enhancing precision in testing. Concurrently, you'll collaborate with the Head of Liver Biology to establish a human liver spheroid culture for the MASH program and validate key QPCR probes to assess target and pathway engagement across disease areas, setting the stage for accurate and high-throughput data collection. At the six-month mark, you'll have successfully completed three rounds of efficacy testing on a total of 60 targets in lung slice cultures (PF), along with two rounds of testing for 20 targets in myocyte slices (HF) and an initial round in liver spheroids (MASH). You will have refined and implemented high-throughput methods for biomarker engagement assays, enabling your team to process over 200 samples weekly. Through meticulous assay development and data-driven target validation, your work will help accelerate Gordian's therapeutic development pipeline, positioning us to make impactful strides in age-related disease treatment. And You: You want a chance to do your best work, immerse yourself and excel, alongside people who will inspire you and whom you'll be excited to spend your days with. You want to play a key role in an early-stage startup: A fast-paced environment full of both uncertainty and new challenges, demanding relentless resourcefulness. You are excited to use cutting-edge technology to find the best therapeutic targets, and turn those into drugs. Ex vivo systems are your specialty—you have worked with advanced cultures such as human cardiomyocytes or precision-cut lung slices and are excited to apply this knowledge to validate targets for real-world diseases. You have experience in Mammalian cell culture with specific expertise in complex protocols (e.g. iPSC culture, slice cultures, organoids). Ideally you have done long term culture of heart tissues, human iPSCs and ESC culture and  differentiation. You're proficient in assay development and execution: RT-qPCR for gene expression in cell and tissue samples, cryosectioning, ELISAs, Western blotting, histology, and image analysis (ImageJ), with a focus on extracting high-quality data to drive insights. Experience in guiding junior scientists, improving throughput, and collaborating across departments to ensure project success. You have experience managing and collaborating on time-sensitive projects, and are comfortable guiding and collaborating across multiple teams to execute experiments at a scale beyond any single person. Experience working in industry and working with Lentiviruses/AAVs are both pluses.  The Details: Gordian aims to provide everything you need to thrive. Beyond our community and science, you'll have enough equity to be a true stakeholder in the company, competitive salary, full health/dental/vision/life insurance, 401k with match, onsite lunch paid for 3 days a week, an onsite gym, whatever vacation you need to be at your peak, remote work flexibility, and access to world-class mentors and advisors to support your professional growth. Our building is in the heart of the biotech capital of South San Francisco.
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\n$150,000 - $195,000 a year
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