Research Associate, PRISM Lab (Production environment)

The mission of the Broad Institute is to transform medicine by dramatically accelerating the understanding and treatment of disease. The Broad creates a vibrant research environment with close links to top academic institutions including Harvard, MIT and the Harvard hospitals. One of the key overarching goals of the Broad Institute Cancer Program is to systematically identify cancer-specific dependencies, to facilitate the development of new therapeutic approaches to adult and pediatric cancers. We seek an energetic, motivated individual to join our team and contribute to multiple ongoing and future collaborative projects.

The PRISM technology allows us to routinely profile over 900 DNA-barcoded cell lines with hundreds of therapeutics in a pooled format much more rapidly than traditional cell line screening. The power of PRISM is realized through our vast understanding of the underlying genomic features of the cell lines: every single therapeutic tested with PRISM delivers not only viability information, but also a wealth of genomic correlations and multivariate analyses to provide a holistic understanding of drug behavior. We use these features to help identify off-target effects, patient populations, biomarkers of response and of resistance, and much more. We collaborate with many large pharmaceutical companies through the Dependency Map Consortium, biotech companies, academic labs, and internally with labs at the Broad Institute to help discover new cancer therapeutics at all phases of the drug discovery process.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW:

Please note that this is a pipeline requisition for 2 opportunities within our PRISM Lab as either a Research Associate I or Research Associate II with immediate openings. These roles are high-volume production, process development roles and you will not have an opportunity to contribute to any publications in this role. Our candidate preference is for individuals that are not looking to return to graduate school in the next 1-2 years.

These positions create the exciting opportunity to join our multidisciplinary team to assist with high-throughput cell line screening and to contribute to our goal of finding novel cancer treatments.

For both roles, candidates will bring basic experience with working in a sterile tissue culture lab environment, as well as basic molecular biology techniques and a high attention to detail.

• High Throughput Screening (HTS) team to support our large-scale screening projects by assisting with cell culture and cell plating, working with automated and semi-automated equipment to execute our cell-based viability assays, maintaining inventories of compounds and chemicals used in our assays, and performing quality-control assessments of our workflows and equipment.

• Cell Pooling team- The PRISM technology allows us to routinely profile over 900 DNA-barcoded cell lines with hundreds of therapeutics in a pooled format, much more rapidly than traditional cell line screening. The successful candidate will play a crucial role in supporting our scientific research with routine cell culture and molecular biology tasks as the main responsibility of this role. Research assistants in the PRISM lab routinely culture up to 30 cell lines at a time, mixing 25 cell lines together for our pools to be used in our screens, ensuring our cell lines are properly stored, and maintaining a sterile environment within the lab.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• At least a B.S. in Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Biology or related fields
• At least 1 year experience in a biological research environment and experience with mammalian cell culture
• Knowledge of high-throughput screening and automation and/or experience working in a high throughput production setting is desired, but not required
• Experience with basic molecular biology techniques including PCR, DNA extractions, etc.
• Must have excellent written, documentation, and oral communication skills
• Must possess strong interpersonal, organizational, and analytical skills, including the ability to handle a variety of tasks in a fast-paced environment
• Strong attention to detail, time management skills, and the ability to maintain accurate records and documentation.