Research Associate - Algae Biology

Living Carbon is a public benefit corporation with a mission to responsibly rebalance the planet’s carbon cycle using the inherent power of plants. We believe that gigaton scale CO2 drawdown will only happen if solutions are both beneficial to the environment and profitable to landowners. We’ve developed photosynthesis-enhanced seedlings that capture carbon faster on underperforming and degraded land. In addition to improving carbon capture rates we are also working on extending the durability of nature based sequestration. We’re backed by some of the most prominent investors in Silicon Valley including Temasek, Toyota, Felicis Ventures, Y Combinator, and Chris Sacca of LowerCarbon Capital.

If you believe that climate change is the defining global emergency of the century and want to join an ambitious project that’s working on a biological solution, we’d love to hear from you.

Your role:

The successful candidate will work as a part of a small team to pioneer bioengineering of algae for carbon sequestration. Responsibilities include algal species scouting, acquisition, lab-scale culture, bioprospecting, genetic manipulation, and scale-up culture preparation.

Your responsibilities

• Perform growth curve analysis to adapt and optimize culture conditions for various algal species at lab scale
• Make algae media stocks and solutions, including artificial seawater
• Maintain algae biomaterials, freezer storage, and responsibly dispose of algal waste
• Work with supervisor and project consultant to develop assay protocols with high throughput capability for species screening
• Perform HTP bioscreening experimentations
• Prepare algal cultures for molecular, biochemical, genomics, metabolic, and structural analysis
• Generate data to support the project of algal bioengineering to increase carbon metabolic flow to targeted compounds in algae
• May perform transformations of algal cells using biolistics, electroporation, injections, or Agrobacterium vectors, and screen for transformants
• May help perform molecular cloning to assemble novel plasmid DNA constructs including agarose gel electrophoresis, DNA fragment isolation, DNA ligation, sequencing, and sequence analysis
• May perform plasmid DNA and genomic extraction from E. coli, yeast and algal cells
• May perform standard PCR assays, qPCR assays, and single/multiplex RT-qPCR assays
• Accurately document experimental protocols, perform analysis and help with interpretation of data, and timely report key findings to supervisor and research team

- Proficiency in working with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)

Qualifications

• BS in plant biology, microbiology, algal biology, or a related field with 0-5 years of related experience in industry or academia
• Technical proficiency in general laboratory practices, including chemical reagents preparation, pH measurement, media preparation, aseptic technique, safety practices, etc.
• Hands-on experience with algal culture and transformation is preferred
• Knowledge of algal species, classification, and bioassays is highly desirable
• Previous experience with algal genetics and algal molecular biology is preferred but not required
• Experience and understanding of high throughput assay is desirableStrong organizational and data documentation skills
• Ability to manage several projects simultaneously
• Effective communication (written/verbal) and ability to work independently and collaboratively as part of a team are critical.

- Self-starter who can operate with minimal supervision

Living Carbon PBC offers competitive compensation, and generous healthcare, dental and vision insurance.

Living Carbon PBC is an equal opportunity employer.

We believe the best solutions to climate change are created by diverse teams. Living Carbon is focused on building a multicultural and inclusive team with strong representation from the many diverse communities disproportionately impacted by climate change. As a public benefit corporation, ensuring solutions to slow climate change are widely distributed to all peoples is critical to the success of our mission.