Arc Institute
Research Associate II, Konermann Lab
Arc Institute, Palo Alto, California, United States, 94306
The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution conducting 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 fully funds 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 300 people to date. 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 Research Associate II to join the Konermann Laboratory at the Arc Institute. You will collaborate closely with experienced scientists to advance in vitro and in vivo projects focused on understanding brain development.
This project builds on previous work in genome-scale CRISPR screening (Konermann et al., 2015; Biering et al., 2021; Wei et al., 2023) and aims at combining modern functional genomics and neuroscience tools to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying brain development and function. The ideal candidate will have experience in molecular biology, single cell RNA sequencing pipelines, in vitro and in vivo work. This position offers an excellent opportunity for candidates considering PhD programs, as you will participate in all stages of a research project under the guidance of experienced scientists.
About You
You love science and learning. Whether it’s gaining knowledge in new fields of scientific research or learning a new lab technique, you never stop being curious and routinely enjoy stepping out of your comfort zone to learn new things.
You are detail‑oriented. You are careful and diligent about good documentation practices, good lab practices, and overall obsessed with keeping things organized.
You love to collaborate and help others. Science is a team effort and you pride yourself in taking the initiative to help out.
You are a problem solver. Science isn’t perfect and it’s common for you to come across issues you need to troubleshoot. You demonstrate patience and confidence when solving complex technical challenges in the laboratory.
In This Position, You Will:
Collaborate closely with senior scientists and RAs in the laboratory to conduct high-throughput CRISPR experiments.
Utilize a wide array of high-throughput molecular biology techniques, such as Gibson and Golden gate assembly, DNA/RNA isolation, cDNA synthesis, qPCR/dPCR, and more.
Independently conduct NGS library prep methods (single cell, bulk: long and short read).
Assist with research planning, execution, analysis, troubleshooting, and data interpretation with a high degree of independence and continued support from the rest of the team.
Job Requirements
BS with 2+ years of relevant experience or MS in molecular biology, neuroscience, or another relevant field. Relevant experience includes independent lab work during undergraduate studies. Strong hands‑on experience with molecular biology (cloning and NGS) required.
Detail‑oriented with excellent organizational and time management skills.
Outstanding critical thinking and problem‑solving skills.
Strong oral and written communication skills.
Be both a strong individual contributor as well as a collaborative team member.
Ability to work some weekends as needed (days off can be swapped for weekdays).
Highly motivated, curious, and a team player.
Preferred Skills
Experience with human stem cell work and/or in vivo mouse work is preferred but not required for the role.
Experience with computational skills including scRNA‑seq analysis is desirable.
The base salary for this position is $75,900. This amount does not include benefits or other forms of compensation.
Voluntary Self‑Identification For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self‑identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.
As set forth in Arc Institute’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.
Voluntary Self‑Identification of Disability Form CC‑305 Page 1 of 1 OMB Control Number 1250‑0005 Expires 04/30/2026
Why are you being asked to complete this form?
We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress toward this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.
Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.
How do you know if you have a disability?
A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:
Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
Blind or low vision
Cancer (past or present)
Cardiovascular or heart disease
Celiac disease
Cerebral palsy
Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
Diabetes
Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
Intellectual or developmental disability
Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
Neurodivergence, for example, attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
Short stature (dwarfism)
Traumatic brain injury
Disability Status Select...
PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.
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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 fully funds 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 300 people to date. 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 Research Associate II to join the Konermann Laboratory at the Arc Institute. You will collaborate closely with experienced scientists to advance in vitro and in vivo projects focused on understanding brain development.
This project builds on previous work in genome-scale CRISPR screening (Konermann et al., 2015; Biering et al., 2021; Wei et al., 2023) and aims at combining modern functional genomics and neuroscience tools to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying brain development and function. The ideal candidate will have experience in molecular biology, single cell RNA sequencing pipelines, in vitro and in vivo work. This position offers an excellent opportunity for candidates considering PhD programs, as you will participate in all stages of a research project under the guidance of experienced scientists.
About You
You love science and learning. Whether it’s gaining knowledge in new fields of scientific research or learning a new lab technique, you never stop being curious and routinely enjoy stepping out of your comfort zone to learn new things.
You are detail‑oriented. You are careful and diligent about good documentation practices, good lab practices, and overall obsessed with keeping things organized.
You love to collaborate and help others. Science is a team effort and you pride yourself in taking the initiative to help out.
You are a problem solver. Science isn’t perfect and it’s common for you to come across issues you need to troubleshoot. You demonstrate patience and confidence when solving complex technical challenges in the laboratory.
In This Position, You Will:
Collaborate closely with senior scientists and RAs in the laboratory to conduct high-throughput CRISPR experiments.
Utilize a wide array of high-throughput molecular biology techniques, such as Gibson and Golden gate assembly, DNA/RNA isolation, cDNA synthesis, qPCR/dPCR, and more.
Independently conduct NGS library prep methods (single cell, bulk: long and short read).
Assist with research planning, execution, analysis, troubleshooting, and data interpretation with a high degree of independence and continued support from the rest of the team.
Job Requirements
BS with 2+ years of relevant experience or MS in molecular biology, neuroscience, or another relevant field. Relevant experience includes independent lab work during undergraduate studies. Strong hands‑on experience with molecular biology (cloning and NGS) required.
Detail‑oriented with excellent organizational and time management skills.
Outstanding critical thinking and problem‑solving skills.
Strong oral and written communication skills.
Be both a strong individual contributor as well as a collaborative team member.
Ability to work some weekends as needed (days off can be swapped for weekdays).
Highly motivated, curious, and a team player.
Preferred Skills
Experience with human stem cell work and/or in vivo mouse work is preferred but not required for the role.
Experience with computational skills including scRNA‑seq analysis is desirable.
The base salary for this position is $75,900. This amount does not include benefits or other forms of compensation.
Voluntary Self‑Identification For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self‑identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.
As set forth in Arc Institute’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.
Voluntary Self‑Identification of Disability Form CC‑305 Page 1 of 1 OMB Control Number 1250‑0005 Expires 04/30/2026
Why are you being asked to complete this form?
We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress toward this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.
Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.
How do you know if you have a disability?
A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:
Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
Blind or low vision
Cancer (past or present)
Cardiovascular or heart disease
Celiac disease
Cerebral palsy
Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
Diabetes
Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
Intellectual or developmental disability
Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
Neurodivergence, for example, attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
Short stature (dwarfism)
Traumatic brain injury
Disability Status Select...
PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.
#J-18808-Ljbffr