Scientist, Cell Biology & Antibody Engineering

medraai; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity ownership

401k

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Unlimited PTO

Weekday meals

Job summary

Medra seeks a Scientist to join our San Francisco team to develop and execute antibody screening and characterization on the Medra Physical AI platform. You will support tissue culture operations, design and run in vitro and cell-based assays to characterize antibody candidates, and contribute to building lab capabilities from new formats to automated workflows.

You will blend scientific judgment with hands-on craft, design and run characterization assays, and work with scientists and

Qualifications

• Ph.D. or equivalent with 2+ years of industry experience (or BS/MS with 6+ years).
• Strong background in mammalian cell culture and sterile technique.
• Deep hands-on expertise in flow cytometry, including high-throughput formats.
• Experience designing and executing cell-based functional antibody assays.
• Knowledge of antibody structure, function, and discovery process.

Responsibilities

• Design, execute, and interpret antibody screening and characterization campaigns across the full funnel.
• Develop and run cell-based binding and functional assays using flow cytometry.
• Run biophysical characterization on antibody candidates - including SPR and BLI - and interpret results.
• Execute developability assays to assess manufacturability and liability risks early.
• Maintain and engineer mammalian cell lines and establish cell-based characterization.
• Build out new lab capabilities end-to-end and write SOPs for autonomous execution.
• Partner with roboticists and software engineers to translate workflows into autonomous protocols.
• Maintain rigorous experimental records in ELN and communicate results clearly.

Skills

Antibody screening

Cell-based assays

Flow cytometry

Biophysical characterization

Lab automation

ELN documentation

Education

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

B.S./M.S. with 6+ years hands-on 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.

The Team:

We're a team of passionate, mission-driven engineers and scientists from companies like Tesla, Amazon, SpaceX, and Neuralink. We're collaborative and love moving fast, both with our product and on team trips skiing or go-karting!

As a team, we love nerding out about engineering and robotics — plus other topics like race cars or cooking. We like learning new things and then sharing our new knowledge with each other.

Our team is opinionated and straightforward. We don't mind intense discussions about design tradeoffs. If we have arguments or miscommunication, we resolve conflicts quickly and empathetically.

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.

In This Role, You Will:

• 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

Let’s Talk If You Have:

• 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

(OPTIONAL) Bonus Points If You Have:

• 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

What we offer:

• An opportunity to fundamentally change the way that scientific research happens
• Fast-paced, creative, and collaborative work environment
• Significant equity ownership
• 401k
• Medical insurance and dental Insurance
• Unlimited PTO
• Weekday lunches and dinners

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.

Medra is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies. We value diversity at Medra and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!