Senior Research Associate, Viral Production (Fixed-Term Contract)

The posting, as Arc Institute wrote it

About Arc Institute

Arc Institute is an independent nonprofit research organization at the interface of artificial intelligence and biology, working to accelerate scientific progress and understand the root causes of complex diseases. Founded in 2021 and based in Palo Alto, Arc partners with Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and UC San Francisco.

Unlike academia, our scientists have long-term funding and industry-like resources. Unlike industry, they're free to pursue high-risk, long-term research without commercial pressures. Arc's Technology Centers and Core Investigator labs work side by side, integrating experimental and computational biology under one roof to tackle problems neither could solve alone.

Our two Institute Initiatives reflect this model in action

• Virtual Cell Initiative : Building a full-stack virtual cell model to identify disease mechanisms and nominate drug targets, accelerating the path from biological insight to clinical trials.
• Alzheimer's Disease Initiative : Mapping the genes, pathways, and environmental factors behind Alzheimer's disease to develop drug candidates that address root causes.

More than 300 Arconauts work together at our Palo Alto headquarters, backed by substantial long-term philanthropic funding.

Why this position could be the best job you’ve ever had

• Join Arc's Alzheimer's Disease Initiative as the production engine behind a first-of-its-kind 3D brain-model screening program, where the cells you make drive disease-target discovery.

About the position

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Research Associate, Viral Production to join the Molecular Engineering team within the Genome Engineering Technology Center at the Arc Institute. This will be a fixed-term, 18-month position. This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

In this role, you will serve as a dedicated producer of lentivirus, supplying high-quality, well-characterized viral preps that power perturbation screening and cell engineering efforts across Arc's wet lab Tech Centers (including Genome Engineering, Cellular Models, and Mammalian Disease Models). This work directly enables the large-scale perturbation screening and cell engineering efforts behind Arc's Virtual Cell Initiative and Alzheimer's Disease Initiative (ADI). The role is focused on planning, consistency, and throughput: executing staggered production rounds ahead of demand, scaling cell expansions and production runs to reflect projected needs across requesting teams, maintaining reagent and consumable stock levels to prevent production delays, and documenting and QC'ing each lot against established standards prior to delivery.

As production infrastructure and standards continue to be developed, this role will contribute to process optimization efforts — supporting improvements in output scaling, cost reduction, and lot-to-lot consistency. This includes assisting with the rollout of automation and higher-throughput production formats, as well as onboar
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nsion (e.g., LV-MAX) and/or adherent systems.

• Demonstrated ability to execute reproducible, multi-step production protocols consistently across repeated rounds.
• Experience with viral titration and QC methods.
• Experience with filtering, single-use aliquoting, cryopreservation, and inventory management of viral stocks.
• Meticulous documentation and record-keeping; comfort working to a production schedule, with strong organizational, planning, and time-management skills and the ability to manage staggered production schedules and anticipate demand.
• Familiarity with reagent inventory, operations management, and LIMS/ELN platforms (e.g., Benchling).
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to coordinate effectively across teams.
• Work onsite in our Palo Alto office 5 days per week. Occasional early or late hours or weekend work may be required to accommodate production schedules.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing or leveraging automation for viral production and/or titration at scale.
• Prior experience independently optimizing processes and workflows to improve viral yield, quality, and consistency.
• Hands-on experience with multiple viral production systems and protocols, including AAV production.
• Experience producing lentivirus in arrayed (plate-based) formats as well as large-scale pooled-library formats.
• Experience managing external vendor relationships for cloning and plasmid preps.

The base salary range for this position is $84,250 to $106,000. These amounts reflect the range of base salary that the Institute reasonably would expect to pay a new hire or internal candidate for this position. The actual base compensation paid to any individual for this position may vary depending on factors such as experience, market conditions, education/training, skill level, and whether the compensation is internally equitable, and does not include bonuses, commissions, differential pay, other forms of compensation, or benefits.