Senior Research Associate, iPSC Differentiation and Genetic Screening

Senior Research Associate, iPSC Differentiation and Genetic 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.

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, optimise 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 self‑less 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 skilful and motivated Senior Research Associate with strong expertise in human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) culture and differentiation to serve as a bridge between our Stem Cell Platform and the Molecular Engineering teams inside the Tech Centers. This position will focus on the reliable differentiation of defined cell types from stem cells, successful delivery and introduction of genetic perturbations and execution of high‑throughput screens in relevant brain models for our Alzheimer’s disease initiative.

This role will involve close collaboration with scientists from different teams to optimise and perform the delivery of gRNAs to stem cell‑derived populations, functional characterisation of engineered cells, their integration into 3D brain models and the harvesting and transferring of samples for downstream readouts such as sequencing.

The position requires an experienced stem cell culture specialist who excels at protocol optimisation and execution, maintains meticulous attention to detail and can effectively coordinate with multiple teams throughout the experimental workflow. This is an excellent opportunity for a motivated and curious researcher interested in helping translate genomic insights into therapeutic strategies.

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 flexible and adaptable, eager to try new ways of tackling problems beyond the approaches with which you’re familiar while also bringing energy and curiosity to the optimisation of existing approaches.
• You have a creative and curious spirit, open and eager to try new ways of tackling problems beyond the approaches with which you’re familiar.
• You can work fast and are detail‑oriented. You are careful and diligent about good documentation practices and keeping things organised while moving at a rapid pace.
• You show initiative and can effectively work independently while also adapting well to situations where collaboration and communication with other RAs / Scientists will bring the best results.
• You are comfortable carrying out the routine execution of tasks while identifying opportunities to troubleshoot and improve bottlenecks.
• Your organisational skills enable you to manage multiple concurrent projects and your curiosity and creativity drive you to continuous…