Test Engineer 3, HTS and Assay Dev

Company: Ginkgo Bioworks
Location: Boston
Posted on: April 15, 2024

Job Description:

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.



A Core aspect of our organism engineering pipeline involves the testing and analysis of engineered cells and strains. To achieve this, we employ high-throughput screens, enabling us to evaluate thousands of strains simultaneously for functional activity. Our approach focuses on advancing discovery at scale by seamlessly integrating cutting-edge computational analysis with advanced workcells. This integration allows us to translate validated walk-up SOPs and workflows into optimized workcell methods, ensuring rigorous assay and screening performance. The ultimate goal is to transform biological research into a data-driven, highly efficient, and results-oriented process using automation and informatics platforms.
If you want to learn how to use cutting-edge laboratory automation and software to understand, engineer, and operationalize biology, a role in the HTS Core team would be a good fit for your career. Ideally, you have experience in the development & optimization of high-throughput screens and plate-based cell cultures (microbial and/or mammalian).
As an HTS core team member, you will design and execute high-throughput screens to generate & interpret data supporting the development of new processes. Other responsibilities will include learning about and applying recent technical and scientific advances to your work, troubleshooting, data analysis, and reporting. HTS core team interacts with and learns from many other teams at Ginkgo, so if you enjoy interdisciplinary work, HTS Core could be a great fit for you!
Responsibilities

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• Plan and execute high-throughput screens and interpret experimental results to plan the next steps for the project.
  
• Support recurring execution of existing workflows and continuously improve them.
  
• Leverage automation to support and troubleshoot assay development and screen execution efforts.
  
• Analyze large data sets and communicate results to the broader team
  
• General lab upkeep, some equipment maintenance, and liquid handling QC checks
  
• Be excited to learn new skills and take on new challenges to support where our projects' science takes us.
  
  Minimum Requirements
  
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  • BS or MS in biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, pharmacology, or equivalent; minimum 5 years of experience in an industry laboratory setting working as part of a multi-disciplinary team are preferred. Or PhD without experience; or equivalent work experience
    
  • Experience with basic biology laboratory techniques and equipment, including plate readers and liquid handlers.
    
  • Experience developing and/or executing assays in a high-throughput setting.
    
  • Experience with mammalian cell transfection, flow cytometry, and/or high-content screening is a plus.
    
  • Proficiency in maintaining an ELN and utilizing Python, Spotfire experience to analyze large data sets, and a desire to learn new programming languages and software tools.
    
  • Willingness and ability to learn new things quickly and work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.
    
  • Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot errors independently.
    
  • Strong organizational skills to support multiple work streams in parallel, create and establish priorities, and meet timelines.
    
    Preferred Capabilities and Experience
    
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    • Experience in QA/QC or statistical process control
      
    • Experience in lab automation
      
    • Data visualization tools, i.e., Spotfire
      
      
      
      
      
      To learn more about Ginkgo, visit www.ginkgobioworks.com/press/ or check out some curated press below:
      
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      • 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, employment applicants, and EOE disability/vet.
        
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Keywords: Ginkgo Bioworks, Boston , Test Engineer 3, HTS and Assay Dev, Engineering , Boston, Massachusetts