Research Associate - Protein

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.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for a highly hands-on Research Associate to join our team and support protein science and cell biology workflows on the Medra Physical AI platform. This is a role for someone who loves being at the bench — someone who has spent years honing their craft in a fast-paced industry lab and takes pride in rigorous, reproducible science.

You will work closely with scientists and roboticists to execute, validate, and optimize protein characterization workflows and cell-based assays as part of our autonomous lab platform. You thrive when given a specific task to own end-to-end, and you bring the experience and intuition to operate independently.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

- Execute protein expression experiments across multiple host systems (e.g., mammalian, E. coli, cell-free) at various scales, from small-scale screens to larger production runs

- Run protein characterization assays, including SPR, BLI, DSF/DSC, and various developability assays.

- Perform cell-based binding and functional assays to evaluate candidates against cell-surface targets and assess functional activity.

- Own day-to-day operation and organization of the cell culture facility, including routine passaging using sterile technique, inventory management, and equipment maintenance.

- Maintain accurate and detailed experimental records in electronic lab notebooks (ELN), and contribute to ...