Computational Biologist @ Ginkgo Bioworks

Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world in order to answer the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our bioengineers make use of an in-house automated foundry for designing and building new organisms. Today, our foundry is actively developing multiple organisms to make different products across multiple industries.

As a Computational Biologist working on the Design Team, you’ll support Ginkgo’s RNA cell engineering programs by designing and analyzing high-throughput experiments using a variety of synthetic biology and genomic approaches. You’ll develop novel computational tools that expand Ginkgo’s mammalian cell engineering toolbox. As part of the Design Team, you will partner with an interdisciplinary team of bench scientists, computational biologists, data scientists, and software engineers, to develop world-changing tools to engineer biology.

The successful candidate will bring their deep knowledge of mammalian gene regulation, transcription and RNA biology to design, support, and analyze synthetic biology projects within the foundry. The candidate will bring knowledge and experience in modern molecular biology techniques applied to higher eukaryotes. To be successful in this role, you will think big and execute systematically. You will draw on your fluency in gene therapy, mammalian cell engineering and NGS to design, analyze and interpret large scale screens. You will put your organizational and communication muscles to work every day as you work closely with teams across Ginkgo.

Please note: we recognize that not all candidates may meet the entire list of Desired Experience and Capabilities. We’re eager to train the right candidates for this role, and encourage those who meet at least two-thirds of the criteria to apply.

#LI-DW1

Responsibilities

Support Ginkgo’s mammalian cell engineering teams with your expertise in mammalian biology, providing the knowledge needed to design, screen and test novel cell lines, vectors and molecules designing megabases of DNA for each project.
Analyze integrated internal and external data to advance mammalian cell engineering programs focused on RNA therapeutic tool development.
Help maintain computational biology software owned by the Design Team.
Troubleshoot moderate- to high-complexity technical problems, proposing biological design solutions in the dry lab, and maintaining familiarity with protocols (e.g. cell culture, diagnostic/QC, assay design, and execution) in the wet lab.
Collaborate with stakeholders across Ginkgo to create the next generation of synthetic biology tools (e.g. algorithms, data structures, predictive models, software pipelines, and/or experimental approaches) that yield step changes in our ability to engineer mammalian cell lines.
Maintain high-quality documentation of your work and discoveries, creating written reports, technical presentations for internal or external audiences, electronic lab notebooks, internal database records, code comments, and software documentation.

Desired Experience and Capabilities

PhD (or equivalent experience) in computational biology, genomics, RNA biology, mRNA therapeutics, quantitative biology, or other relevant field. Interdisciplinary work is strongly preferred.
Subject matter expertise in RNA molecular biology, mRNA expression systems or mRNA therapeutics development as evidenced by publication in journals or patents.
2+ years of professional experience (grad school counts) working with mammalian genome engineering tools, such as CRISPR/Cas systems, recombinases, and viral vectors.
Proficiency with at least one software programming language (Python preferred). Knowledge of best practices for collaborative software development (version control systems, test-driven development, and good documentation habits). Familiarity with cloud services (e.g. AWS) is preferred.
First-hand technical experience in at least two of the following areas: synthetic biology, bioinformatics, RNA biology, structural RNA biology, transcriptomics, translatomics, gene regulation, post transcriptional regulation, sequence analysis, genomics, NGS analysis, machine learning, and quantitative modeling of biological systems.
Demonstrated ability to meet the demands of multiple concurrent projects.
Strong curiosity about (and comfort working in) areas of biology previously unknown to you and, at times, your peers.

We look forward to hearing from you. Please send us the following:

A résumé or curriculum vitae

A sample of your code. A GitHub profile, if you have one, is preferred. Otherwise, attached files are ok.

We also feel it’s important to point out the obvious here – there’s a serious lack of diversity in our industry and it needs to change. Our goal is to help drive that change. Ginkgo is deeply committed to diversity, equality, and inclusion in all of its practices, especially when it comes to growing our team. We hope to continue to build a company whose culture promotes inclusion and embraces how rewarding it is to work with engineers from all walks of life. Making biology easier to engineer is a tough nut to crack – we can’t afford to leave any talent untapped.

It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants.

To learn more about Ginkgo, visit www.ginkgobioworks.com/press/ or check out some curated press below:

What is it really like to take your company public via a SPAC? One Boston biotech shares its journey (Fortune)

Ginkgo Bioworks resizes the definition of going big in biotech, raising $2.5B in a record SPAC deal that weighs in with a whopping $15B-plus valuation (Endpoints News)

Ginkgo Bioworks CEO on scaling up Covid-19 testing: ‘If we try, we can win’ (CNBC)

Ginkgo raises $70 million to ramp up COVID-19 testing for employers, universities (Boston Globe)

Ginkgo Bioworks Redirects Its Biotech Platform to Coronavirus (Wall Street Journal)

Ginkgo Bioworks Provides Support on Process Optimization to Moderna for COVID-19 Response (PRNewswire)

The Life Factory: Synthetic Organisms From This $1.4 Billion Startup Will Revolutionize Manufacturing (Forbes)

Synthetic Bio Pioneer Ginkgo Raises $290 Million in New Funding (Bloomberg)

Ginkgo Bioworks raises $350 million fund for biotech spinouts (Reuters)

Can This Company Convince You to Love GMOs? (The Atlantic)

We also feel that it’s important to point out the obvious here – there’s a serious lack of diversity in our industry, and that needs to change. Our goal is to help drive that change. Ginkgo is deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all of its practices, especially when it comes to growing our team. Our culture promotes inclusion and embraces how rewarding it is to work with people from all walks of life.

We’re developing a powerful biological engineering platform, so we must remain mindful of the many ways our technology can – and will – impact people around the world. We care about how our platform is used, and having a diverse team to build it gives us the best chance that it’s something we’ll be proud of as it continues to grow. Therefore, it’s critical that we incorporate the diverse voices and visions of all those who play a role in the future of biology.

It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants.

Responsibilities

Desired Experience and Capabilities

6 month growth

1 year growth

2 year growth

Benefits