Here's the tl;dr:

• At Cradle, we are on a mission to help make programming biology easy. We do that by providing biologists with the software, machine learning & services to discover, design and optimise enzymes and their cell-factories

• We're an experienced team, have built many successful products before and we've raised EUR 5.5m from top tier investors

• We're focused on building the best possible team culture. We're distributed across two locations, do almost everything async and are super flexible about when we work.

• We offer top of the market salary, a generous equity stake in the company and a wide range of benefits from health and wellbeing, financial, to training and career progression opportunities.

This is Cradle

Cradle aims to make programming biology easy by providing biologists the tools to discover, design and optimise enzymes and cell-factories. We are bridge builders who bring together the best of machine learning, synthetic biology, developer tools, and user experience design. Our mission is to enable a world where most of the products around us can be easily made and degraded biologically using a cell-factory instead of (petro-)chemicals, plants or animal agriculture.

What we're looking for

For this, we are looking for a motivated Research Associate to strengthen our Bioengineering team. This team is responsible for developing and running high-throughput workflows for building DNA libraries, expressing and purifying proteins, and running enzyme characterisation studies (e.g. enzyme assays). Our aim is to build a wet-lab infrastructure that enables much more scalable and cost-effective experimentation, working hand in hand with our machine learning algorithms. Next to more established methods, we will develop workflows that are based on fundamentally different techniques than currently is mainstream.

As a Research Associate, you will collaborate with scientists on the team to execute and continuously improve novel wet lab methods for our DNA construction and enzyme optimisation pipeline. If you enjoy running molecular biology workflows, love to tinker, and want to be a part of building the next-generation platform for making biotechnological products - please apply!

Responsibilities

As a Research Associate in the Bioengineering team, you would be responsible to:

• Execute workflows for (library) DNA synthesis and assembly, protein expression, protein purification, and enzyme characterisation;

• Suggest and work on improvements to make these workflows more efficient, robust, cost-effective, and integrated;

• Effectively communicate results, successes and challenges in a cross-functional environment.

Need-to-Haves

• BSc + 4 yrs, MSc + 2 yrs, or equivalent experience in molecular biology, biochemistry, enzymology, metabolic engineering, biophysics, or related fields.

• Demonstrated experience with in vitro and/or in vivo protein expression systems (e.g. E. coli, B. subtilis, P. pastoris, cell extracts).

• Hands-on experience with standard cloning techniques.

• Excitement to learn, contribute, and drive innovation in an early stage startup environment. Having an appetite for its ambiguity and fast pace.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills in English. Proactively sharing results, successes and challenges in a cross-functional environment.

• The ability to run multiple projects simultaneously while ensuring that process steps are documented, and physical / digital data are organised.

Nice-to-haves

• Hands-on experience with:

• Protein purification techniques (e.g. affinity tag purification)

• Enzyme assay development

• Next-generation sequencing techniques (Illumina, Nanopore, PacBio)

• Classical high-throughput laboratory automation (robotic liquid handlers, plate readers)

• High-throughput advanced cloning technologies, such as site-directed mutagenesis, Gibson Assembly, and Golden-Gate Cloning.

• Pooled or multiplexed methodologies for DNA assembly, strain build, or enzymatic assays.

• Experience with sample preparation and data analysis in workflows involving analytical methods such as LC/ESI-MS, MALDI-MS, UV/Vis, RP, size exclusion.

• Familiarity with scripting languages such as Python, Matlab, R, SQL.

• Experience with statistical approaches to understanding, controlling, and reducing process variation.

Learn More & Apply

👉🏽 Did we peak your interest? We would love to hop on a call with you. E-mail jobs@cradle.bio or if you are ready to join you can apply through the form.

Send along links that best showcase the relevant things you've built and done. Ask your favourite person to include a letter on what you mean to them. Feel free to get creative!

**Even if you don't meet all the qualifications, but are enthusiastic about the job, we would love to meet you! We believe that anyone who is interested in a topic is able to learn. Do not hesitate to apply.

We also strongly encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply.**

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