Scientist, Cell Biology & Antibody Engineering

Medra; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Significant equity ownership

401k

Medical and dental insurance

Unlimited PTO

Weekday dinners

Job summary

Medra in San Francisco seeks a Scientist to drive antibody screening and characterization using their Physical AI platform. The ideal candidate will bring expertise in cell culture, flow cytometry, and antibody characterization, with a strong background in conducting innovative research within a collaborative team environment. This role requires on-site presence and offers relocation benefits, medical insurance, significant equity, and more, making it an exceptional opportunity for passionate researchers.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of industry experience for Ph.D. candidates, or 6+ years for B.S./M.S.
• Strong background in cell culture and sterile technique.
• Deep expertise in flow cytometry and functional assays.
• Understanding of therapeutic antibody discovery process.

Responsibilities

• Design and execute antibody screening and characterization.
• Run cell-based assays using flow cytometry.
• Maintain mammalian cell lines and establish assays.
• Partner with roboticists to tailor workflows for autonomous execution.

Skills

Mammalian cell culture

Flow cytometry

Cell-based functional assays

Antibody characterization

Documentation

Education

Ph.D. in cell biology, immunology, biochemistry or related discipline

B.S./M.S. with 6+ years of industry experience

Job description

What We’re Building

At Medra, our mission is to use AI, robotics, and biology to accelerate life science research, with the ultimate goal of eradicating disease. We have been quietly building the foundational layers of our Physical AI Scientist platform:

Physical AI that can operate scientific instruments with human-level dexterity.

Scientific AI that can analyze results, reason about next steps, and close the loop autonomously.

This is an incredibly ambitious mission, but we believe that a team of ambitious people with high ownership can accomplish incredible things.

About the Role

We are looking for a Scientist to join our team and to develop and execute antibody screening and characterization on the Medra Physical AI platform. You will support our tissue culture operations, design and run in vitro and cell-based assays to characterize antibody candidates, and contribute to building out the lab capabilities that make all of this possible — from new assay formats to the automated workflows that execute them at scale.

This is a role for someone who blends scientific judgment with hands‑on craft — someone who has designed and run antibody characterization and functional assays in high stakes settings and is energized by the idea of translating bench expertise into an autonomous lab. You will work closely with scientists and roboticists to develop and validate assays and bring them into routine execution on our platform.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, execute, and interpret antibody screening and characterization campaigns across the full funnel — from high-throughput primary hit triage through orthogonal confirmation.

• Develop and run cell‑based binding and functional assays using flow cytometry to characterize antibodies, VHHs, and other binder formats.

• Run biophysical characterization on antibody candidates — including SPR and BLI for affinity and kinetics, and epitope binning — and interpret results to inform go/no‑go.

• Execute developability assays to assess manufacturability and liability risks early — including thermal stability (DSF/DSC), aggregation and monomericity (HPLC‑SEC), hydrophobicity (HPLC‑HIC), polyspecificity/non‑specific binding, and expression titer — and help triage candidates based on integrated characterization data.

• Maintain and engineer mammalian cell lines (e.g., Expi293, ExpiCHO, HEK293, CHO) and establish cell‑based characterization and functional assays.

• Build out new lab capabilities end‑to‑end: scope the need, evaluate technologies, qualify instruments, write SOPs, and prepare validated workflows for autonomous execution.

• Partner with roboticists and software engineers to translate manual assay workflows into reliable, high‑throughput autonomous protocols on the Medra platform.

• Maintain rigorous experimental records in electronic lab notebooks (ELN) and communicate results clearly to internal and external stakeholders.

What You Bring to the Team

• Ph.D. in cell biology, immunology, biochemistry, or a related discipline with 2+ years of industry experience, or a B.S./M.S. with 6+ years of deep, hands‑on industry experience.

• Strong background in mammalian cell culture and sterile technique, with a track record of maintaining healthy, reproducible cell lines for assay work.

• Deep hands‑on expertise in flow cytometry, including high‑throughput formats and panel design.

• Demonstrated experience designing and executing cell‑based functional assays for antibody characterization (binding, potency, mechanism‑of‑action, or similar).

• Working understanding of antibody structure, function, and the therapeutic antibody discovery process.

• Comfort establishing target‑overexpressing cell lines and evaluating/implementing new assay technologies.

• Strong documentation habits, attention to detail, and the ability to drive multiple workstreams in parallel.

• A scrappy, can‑do attitude — you figure things out and get things done.

Bonus Points For

• Experience screening antibodies against challenging target classes (e.g., GPCRs, ion channels, multi‑pass membrane proteins).

• Experience with alternative binder formats — VHHs, bispecifics, Fc‑fusions, ADCs, or non‑Ig scaffolds.

• Hands‑on experience with lab automation and liquid handling platforms.

• Experience expressing and purifying antibodies in HEK293/CHO systems.

• Track record of developing and qualifying new assays or platforms from scratch.

This position is 100% in‑person; you must be able to come on‑site to our San Francisco office. We offer relocation benefits for applicants who need to relocate.

What We Offer

• An opportunity to change the way that scientific research happens.

• Fast‑paced, creative, and collaborative work environment.

• Significant equity ownership.

• 401k.

• Medical and dental insurance.

• Unlimited PTO.

• Weekday dinners.