Siolta Therapeutics - project a: Microbiology

Short about the company:

Our mission is to develop microbiome-based live biotherapeutics, as well as companion diagnostics, aimed at the prevention and treatment of inflammatory diseases, beginning with asthma. Siolta Therapeutics is a San Francisco-based startup that was co-founded in late 2016 by Susan Lynch (University of California at San Francisco), Nikole Kimes (Siolta, formerly UCSF) and Samir Kaul (founder, Khosla Ventures). Siolta marries powerful new science with the venture-backed start-up world to realize its vision in a streamlined fashion.

Position summary

Siolta is looking to fill a scientist position on our microbiology team. We continue to optimize our lead candidate mixed-species biotherapeutic, as well as develop new pipelines for live biotherapeutic therapies. We are looking for a microbiologist to support projects related to bioreactor process optimization, isolation and characterization of novel therapeutic organisms of interest, and molecular and metabolic modeling of bacterial isolates. This position will enhance manufacturing of our live biotherapeutic for our current clinical pipeline, as well as catalyze therapeutic development pipelines with novel immunomodulatory organisms.

Job responsibilities

The research scientist will be responsible for isolation of target organisms from clinical samples, largely through the use of selective media and anaerobic cell culture. The scientist will culture and characterize the target organisms using standard microbiological techniques as well as next-generation DNA sequencing. The scientist will also be responsible for working with our bioinformatics team to develop metabolic models and safety data for the organisms using genomic data. Finally, the scientist will assist in evaluating the therapeutic potential of screened candidate organisms in animal models of inflammatory disease.

Required skills

Good communication, organization, and documentation skills required.

Laboratory Skills: Aseptic technique, cell culture (bacterial), DNA extraction, PCR, qPCR, mouse models, NGS library prep (preferred but not required), bioinformatics experience (preferred but not required)

Qualifications

B.A. in molecular biology, microbiology or related field. Knowledge of and passion for the human gut microbiome a plus.