Rna Engineer 2

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.

Ginkgo is a high-growth, well-capitalized public biotech company in Boston that is redesigning the living world to solve some of the globe's growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. 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 mission to "make biology easier to engineer" is poised to disrupt multiple industries by leveraging our innovative data, automation, and scale in biological engineering.

Ginkgo's mission is to make biology easier to engineer. We are constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world 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 developing over 40 different organisms to make different products across multiple industries.

Ginkgo is continuously crossing new frontiers of biological engineering, and we have a record of delivering to our partners what was (until recently) thought impossible. Now, our expansion into mammalian cell engineering promises to push our boundaries even further, and so we're looking for curious, creative, and driven pioneers in this field.

We are searching for an exceptionally creative and motivated Engineer 2 with expertise in RNA purification process development, scale-up and analytical method development. At Ginkgo, your role will involve collaborative work with scientists from various teams, focusing on designing, screening, generating and purifying RNA constructs for both therapeutic and non-therapeutic purposes. Your main responsibility will be to develop mRNA and circRNA processes including purifications (both chromatography and high-throughput based methodologies), analytical method development / characterization and optimizing IVT reactions. Prior experience purification, IVT and RNA work will be strongly favored. Additionally, experience with Design Engineering, DOE, in-vitro or cell-based experiments for engineering RNA with durable, tissue-specific expression is highly valued. Please note: this role could be based in either our Seaport or Cambridge locations, but requires some flexibility to occasionally be present at the other location.

Your primary role involves hands-on research and process development to optimize circRNA / mRNA purification, analytical method development and optimizing IVT reactions with the ultimate aim of producing therapeutic-grade material for in-vitro downstream assays and pre-clinical in-vivo studies.

Responsibilities

• Execute circRNA / mRNA purifications, analytical method development and develop novel scalable processes to deliver therapeutic-grade material for in-vitro and in-vivo studies.
• As an integral team member you will develop novel chromatography and HTP purification processes including affinity, AEX, HIC, ipRP, mixed-mode, TFF and others.
• Operate in-house processes for circular RNA (circRNA) and mRNA production, including running HPLC or FPLC, collecting and pooling chromatogram peaks, and reporting in LIMS.
• Analyze circRNA and mRNA fraction intermediates and final purified material analytically using agarose and PAGE gels, capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE), ELISAs, HPLC and other methods.
• Take ownership in troubleshooting and maintenance equipment. Author, review, and approve protocols, SOPs, technical documents, and reports for RNA production.
• Use Ginkgo's Software and Automation infrastructure to execute production process and collaborate with software engineers to understand and provide feedback on how to improve upon Ginkgo's LIMS and data capture pipeline
• Execute and collaborate to plan experiments, analyze and interpret data. Operate independently and effectively collaborate with colleagues and cross functional teams to drive results.
• Maintain comprehensive electronic lab notebooks (ELNs) and documentation records, and present findings to internal and external Ginkgo partners.
• Work with other team members to drive standardization, quality processes and documentation towards improving our analytical infrastructure.

Minimum Requirements

• Masters Degree or Bachelors with 2 years of experience in Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering, Molecular Biology, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, or a related field.
• Strong knowledge of nucleic acid chemistry, nucleic acid structure-activity relationships, RNA biology, synthesis, purification, and characterization.
• Experience in high-throughput, lab and large-scale nucleic acid (RNA) purification methodologies, including chromatography separation (ion-pair reversed-phase, anion exchange, hydrophobic interaction, mixed-mode) and buffer exchange methods.
• A desire to thrive in a team-first, fast-paced environment, a willingness to learn new technologies and skills, and an ability to efficiently deliver and solve problems.
• An enthusiasm for learning new techniques and a strong curiosity about previously unknown areas of biology.

Preferred Capabilities and Experience

• Experience in in-vitro transcription, analytical characterization and performing quantitative analyses using any of the techniques: CGE, Agarose Gel, PAGE, ELISA, qPCR/RT-PCR, HPLC / UPLC, DLS, Tm.
• Prior experience working with automated and/or high throughput liquid handlers (Hamilton, LC autosamplers, automated workcells, etc)
• Knowledge of GMP practices and experience working in pharmaceutical companies.
• Experience working within a cross functional environment and knowledge of LEAN (or other organizational methodologies) to improve process efficiency and quality a plus.