Senior Scientist, RNA Delivery

Conception; Berkeley (CA); On-site; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

Company equity

Excellent healthcare benefits

Job summary

Conception, based in Berkeley, is seeking a hands-on Scientist with expertise in RNA delivery to enhance our differentiation platform. The role focuses on developing workflows for RNA delivery in mammalian cells, optimizing various parameters, and collaborating with interdisciplinary teams.

Applicants must have a PhD or equivalent experience in RNA Biology or related fields, and hands-on experience with recent RNA delivery technologies. This position offers competitive pay, equity, and excellent healthcare benefits.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent experience in RNA Biology, Cell Biology, or related field.
• Hands-on experience delivering RNA into mammalian cells.
• Experience with recent RNA delivery technologies.
• Strong skills in experimental design and data interpretation.

Responsibilities

• Develop RNA delivery workflows for diverse cell types.
• Optimize RNA delivery parameters like dose and formulation.
• Build assays to measure delivery efficiency and differentiation outcomes.
• Collaborate with multiple teams on different projects.

Skills

RNA delivery expertise

Experimental design

Troubleshooting

Data interpretation

Education

PhD in a relevant field

Tools

Flow cytometry

qPCR

RNA-seq

Job description

Experience level: PhD or equivalent industry experience.

About Conception

Conception is pioneering the future of reproductive biology by generating functional human eggs from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Our mission is to unlock new possibilities for fertility, reproductive health, and genetic diversity. We are building a world‑class team at the intersection of stem cell biology, developmental biology, RNA biology, and synthetic biology to make this vision a reality.

The position

We are seeking a highly creative, rigorous, and hands‑on Scientist with deep expertise in RNA delivery to help optimize and enhance Conception’s differentiation platform.

This position sits at the intersection of RNA biology, delivery technology, stem cell differentiation, and platform development. You will be responsible for building robust, scalable, and biologically effective delivery workflows that enable us to test and deploy programs across multiple differentiation contexts.

What you’ll do

• Develop RNA delivery workflows for payload expression in different cell types and culture set ups. Apply RNA delivery strategies to improve and accelerate Conception’s differentiation platform.
• Optimize RNA format, delivery chemistry and formulation, dose, timing, repeat delivery, expression, viability, and biological activity.
• Build assays to measure delivery efficiency, target expression, and differentiation outcomes. Support screening workflows for RNA constructs, genes of interest, delivery conditions, and combinatorial perturbations.
• Collaborate across differentiation, cell engineering, and computational teams.

What we’re looking for

Required

• PhD or equivalent experience in RNA Biology, Cell Biology, Stem Cell Biology, Bioengineering, Synthetic Biology, Developmental Biology, or a related field.
• Hands‑on experience delivering RNA into mammalian cells in various formats.
• Experience with most up to date RNA delivery technologies (LNPs, ligand conjugates, exosomes, electroporation, etc.) and standard readouts such as flow cytometry, imaging, qPCR, reporter assays, or RNA‑seq.
• Experience delivering RNA or nanoparticles into complex culture systems.
• Experience optimizing delivery parameters such as dose, formulation, timing, repeat dosing, expression duration, toxicity, and biological effect.
• Strong experimental design, troubleshooting, documentation, and data interpretation skills.

Preferred

• Experience with iPSCs, ESCs, primary cells, differentiating cells, or other difficult‑to‑transfect cell types.
• Experience using RNA‑based differentiation approaches.
• Experience with different RNA format design, production, purification, characterization, or delivery.
• Experience with medium‑ or high‑throughput screens, ORF libraries, combinatorial perturbations, or barcoded workflows.
• Familiarity with scRNA‑seq or related single‑cell approaches.
• Familiarity with developmental biology, reproductive biology, germ cell development, ovarian biology, or organoid systems.

Come and work with us

We are well funded and well connected in Silicon Valley. We offer competitive pay, company equity, and excellent healthcare benefits for these positions.

To learn more about the original mouse proof of concept to live birth that inspired us, see https://www.nature.com/articles/nature20104