Salary Range: 115000 to 150000 (Currency: USD) (Pay period: per-year-salary)

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: https://www.gordian.bio/culture/

About the Role:

Your primary mission as a Scientist, Ex Vivo, is to design and execute experiments using patient samples to validate and optimize hits from our in vivo pooled screens in osteoarthritic horses. Confirming efficacy in human systems is a key part of moving therapies forward to development, and you’ll be managing all scientific and logistical aspects of this part of our work. You will need to think carefully about both disease biology, efficient workflows for managing high volumes of testing, and challenges of working with tissue from heterogeneous patients.

You will work with the head of osteoarthritis, initially to learn all relevant techniques and subsequently to keep experiments organized and successful. As you continue executing these experiments, you will build additional expertise to handle the increasingly complex issues of drug discovery, e.g. how to probe mechanism of action for new targets, or matching ex vivo experiments to different patient populations.

In your first month you’ll shadow and work with the head of osteoarthritis on ongoing ex vivo experiments, doing supporting assays and absorbing protocols for explant and co-culture systems to the point of independently owning these experiments. You’ll also become familiar with Gordian’s teams and workflows, to work effectively within the larger company.

By 2 months, you have owned the planning of an entire ex vivo validation project testing therapeutic efficacy of 5-10 treatments across multiple human donor samples. You initiate this project while simultaneously taking on execution of another ongoing validation project, delivering robust results in each. You also take over sample procurement and management for our OA patient samples.

At 3 months, you are owning all aspects of ex vivo validation experiments for the OA program, including data analysis and reporting. You’ve completed execution of one large experiment and are progressing the experiment planned in month 2. You’re expanding your understanding of OA biology and applying this to improve our experiments, and are growing comfortable with at least one additional aspect of the program (e.g. histological assessment of joints).

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 for osteoarthritis, and turn those into drugs.

You have experience with complex/fragile culture systems, like primary patient cells or complex differentiation protocols. Ideally you’ve worked with tissue explants and/or primary cells from the joint.

You’re experienced with RT-qPCR and enzymatic protein readouts, including statistical analysis of multi-cohort experiments. Bonus points for experience with GAG assays, inflammatory protein panels, or histological assessment of cartilage.

You have experience managing and collaborating on time-sensitive projects involving large numbers experimental conditions, often with overlapping timecourses. Bonus points for experience collaborating in a team structure across multiple projects.

Bonus points for experience working on drug testing, ideally in industry setting, for direct experience with osteoarthritis or relevant areas of biology (inflammation, tissue regeneration/fibrosis, pain).

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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