Founding Research Associate/Associate Scientist

Deliverome Bio is a nonprofit startup building a first-of-its-kind open atlas of surface protein abundance and internalization. We’re hiring a founding team to generate the data that could expand what targeted therapies can reach.

You will be a core experimental engine for the Deliverome cell biology platform. Your work will focus on developing, optimizing, and executing cell-based assays that support receptor biology, internalization profiling, and broader platform workflows across both primary cells and tractable workhorse cell lines. This role spans assay development, cell culture, flow cytometry and cell sorting, and experimental workflows that feed directly into MS enrichment-based readouts.

This role is well suited to someone who loves being at the bench, takes pride in making complex workflows reliable, and has strong hands-on experience with primary cell culture, standard mammalian cell lines, and flow-based experimental workflows. You will work closely with scientists across cell biology, proteomics, and functional genomics, and your execution will directly shape the quality, reproducibility, and scalability of the data we generate and release to the community.

Like all of our founding hires, you will have a direct line to co-founders and a genuine say in how the platform is built. Your protocols will be used broadly, your optimizations will matter immediately, and your work will support datasets, reagents, and methods that are released openly for others to build on. You will gain unusually broad, practical experience spanning assay development, primary human cell workflows, flow cytometry, and MS-compatible cell biology in an open science setting.

• Develop, optimize, and execute cell-based assays that support receptor profiling, internalization studies, and related platform workflows

• Build assays across a spectrum of systems, from workhorse cell lines for fast iteration and troubleshooting to primary cells for biologically relevant validation

• Support assay transfer from concept to robust routine execution, including optimization of timing, controls, signal window, reproducibility, and throughput

• Troubleshoot assay variability, cell handling effects, reagent performance, and readout quality across both engineered cell lines and primary cells

• Generate clean, well-documented datasets and communicate experimental outcomes, limitations, and next-step recommendations clearly to the team

• Culture, maintain, and experimentally manipulate a range of mammalian cell types, with particular emphasis on both primary cells and standard experimental cell lines

• Execute and refine workflows in tractable systems like HEK293 and K562 while helping translate the strongest assays into more biologically relevant primary cell contexts

• Support tissue- and blood-derived workflows, including sample handling, enrichment, recovery, and preparation for downstream assays

• Help establish standardized cell preparation workflows that preserve viability, biological relevance, and cross-experiment consistency across donors, cell types, and assay formats

• Design, execute, and troubleshoot flow cytometry experiments for phenotyping, assay readout, QC, and cell enrichment

• Perform fluorescence-activated cell sorting and/or related enrichment workflows to isolate defined cell populations from heterogeneous samples

• Support development of flow-based assays, including panel optimization, gating strategy refinement, compensation controls, and sample quality assessment

• Contribute to assay formats that support screening or screening-adjacent workflows where appropriate, with particular emphasis on sorting and analytical flow cytometry

• Support cell preparation and upstream assay execution for MS enrichment-based workflows, including experiments that depend on clean labeling, enrichment quality, and reproducible sample handling

• Partner closely with the proteomics team to ensure cell-state, lysis, enrichment, and sample prep constraints are considered during assay development rather than after the fact

• Help optimize workflows where cell biology quality directly determines the success of downstream enrichments and MS readouts

• Contribute to development of reproducible handoff points between cell biology workflows and proteomics workflows, including QC, sample tracking, and protocol standardization

• Document protocols, assay parameters, controls, and experimental observations in a way others can reliably reproduce

• Contribute to SOP development, QC frameworks, reagent evaluation, and benchmarking across assays and cell workflows

• Help build a cell biology operation that is rigorous, scalable, and publication-ready from the beginning

• Contribute to protocol sharing, method writeups, and other open-science outputs as the platform matures

• BS or MS in cell biology, molecular biology, immunology, bioengineering, biochemistry, or a related field, with strong hands-on experimental experience

• Excellent mammalian cell culture skills, including experience with both standard cell lines and primary cells or other delicate cell systems

• Demonstrated assay development or assay optimization experience in a cell biology setting

• Strong flow cytometry experience, including 2-3 color panels, assay readouts, QC, and data interpretation

• Practical experience with cell sorting and/or other enrichment methods

• Strong experimental instincts and attention to detail: you think about controls, biological confounders, and workflow failure points before they become problems

• Clear record-keeping and comfort executing carefully across repeated runs and evolving protocols

• Pooled functional genomics screening experience

• Experience with primary human samples, including blood- or tissue-derived cell isolation, handling, and downstream assay support

• Experience supporting or interfacing with MS enrichment-based workflows or other proteomics-adjacent sample prep pipelines

• Experience with receptor internalization assays, uptake assays, cell surface staining, biotinylation/enrichment workflows, or related quantitative cell biology methods

• Comfort with basic analysis of flow cytometry or screening data in FlowJo, Python, Prism, or similar tools

• You are a bench scientist at heart: careful, fast, reliable, and energized by getting an assay to work reproducibly

• You enjoy the real craft of experimental biology — cell handling, setup discipline, troubleshooting, and protocol refinement

• You are comfortable moving between tractable cell lines for rapid development and primary cells for biological relevance, and you understand what changes when you move between them

• You know that cell prep, staining quality, sorting rigor, and enrichment quality all matter downstream, and you care deeply about that handoff

• You document as you go and write protocols other people can actually follow

• You want your work to be openly released, widely adopted, and genuinely useful to people building better therapies

• You thrive in a small, high-trust team where everyone’s contributions are visible and decisions are made fast, and where accelerating science should never be perceived as stepping on toes

We are hiring at the Research Associate to Associate Scientist level depending on capability and experience. We are open to candidates from either industry or academia. What matters most is strong hands-on experimental execution, depth in cell biology workflows, comfort with both primary cells and standard cell lines, and the ability to improve assays rather than simply run them as written.

• Competitive salary benchmarked to industry rates

• Full benefits including health, dental, vision, and retirement

• A founding team role: your decisions will shape the platform and the organization

• Open science by design: your work will be published, deposited on Addgene, and used globally

• Unprecedented collaboration with world-class advisors across proteomics, functional genomics, targeted delivery, and AI

• A culture that values rigor, transparency, and speed, but doesn’t mistake busyness for productivity