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

Arc Institute; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 84,000 - 114,000; Full time

Job summary

Arc Institute in Palo Alto is hiring a Senior Research Associate, Viral Production for an 18-month fixed-term contract. The role focuses on producing high-quality lentivirus for perturbation screening and cell engineering projects across Arc's Genome Engineering Technology Center.

The ideal candidate has 4+ years in viral production (or a 2+ year MS track), strong titration/QC skills, and is comfortable working onsite five days a week.

Qualifications

• BS or MS with relevant lab experience in viral production.
• Experience with mammalian cell culture and aseptic technique.
• Experience executing multi-step production protocols across rounds.

Responsibilities

• Execute staggered rounds of lentivirus production across plate formats and large-scale runs.
• Perform QC on viral lots including titration on target cells.
• Coordinate demand forecasting and schedule production to meet ADI/VCI timelines.
• Maintain detailed production records and inventory in Benchling and related systems.
• Troubleshoot production issues and maintain supply continuity.

Skills

Lentivirus production at scale

Mammalian cell culture

Viral titer & QC

Production scheduling

Documentation

Cross-functional coordination

Education

BS degree in relevant field

MS degree in relevant field

Tools

Benchling

LIMS/ELN

Job description

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

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 onboarding additional viral systems.

The ideal candidate is experienced in lentivirus production at scale using suspension (e.g., LV-MAX) and/or adherent systems, and proficient in viral titration, and quality assessment. They execute and troubleshoot independently, with outstanding attention to detail and a commitment to dependable, reproducible work. They communicate proactively across teams and bring a continuous-improvement mindset to a high-volume workflow.

About you

• You take pride in producing consistent, high-quality results on a predictable schedule.
• You are diligent, meticulous, and committed to thorough documentation and good record-keeping practices.
• You are organized and plan ahead, keeping workflows, reagents, and timelines on track.
• You respect the process and are comfortable with routine execution while continuously identifying opportunities to troubleshoot and address bottlenecks.
• You communicate proactively and enjoy coordinating across teams to anticipate and meet demand.
• You thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative, team-science environment.

In this position you will

• Execute staggered rounds of lentivirus production, spanning arrayed small-scale productions (e.g., 24- and 96-well plate formats) through large-scale pooled-library productions, using suspension (LV-MAX) and/or adherent systems.
• Concentrate, filter, and aliquot virus into single-use aliquots, and perform quality control on each lot — including functional titration on relevant target cell lines — ensuring delivered virus meets the acceptance criteria defined by requesting teams.
• Help coordinate cross-functionally to forecast demand in advance, scaling and scheduling each round of production accordingly to meeting the projected needs of requesting teams and the ADI screening calendar.
• Maintain rigorous, organized documentation of production runs, titer/QC outcomes, and viral inventory and distribution in Benchling (including matrix-tube aliquot tracking and metadata capture).
• Perform troubleshooting on failed productions, elevate and reschedule as needed to maintain supply continuity.
• Maintain inventory of key reagents, media, and consumables to ensure uninterrupted production, including proactive procurement.
• Help establish, refine, and run an efficient end-to-end viral production platform spanning demand intake to final delivery, including a request/intake system, plasmid hand-off, and QC standards.
• Contribute to process optimization aimed at improving the scale, quality, and lot-to-lot consistency of production.

Requirements

• BS degree in relevant field with 4+ years of relevant experience, or MS degree in relevant field with 2+ years of relevant postgraduate experience. Industry or core-facility experience in viral production is strongly preferred.
• Proficiency in mammalian cell culture procedures and associated aseptic techniques, with direct hands‑on experience producing lentivirus at scale using suspension (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 $114,250. 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.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Arc Institute’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A \"disabled veteran\" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A \"recently separated veteran\" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An \"active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran\" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An \"Armed forces service medal veteran\" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.