{"id":548185,"url":"https://alion.io/job/convergent-research-research-associate-biosensing","title":"Research Associate - Biosensing","company":{"id":6914,"name":"Convergent Research","domain":"convergentresearch.org","url":"https://alion.io/company/convergentresearch","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":94,"open_postings":8,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.25,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":57,"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"}},"role":"Science & Research","role_family":"Science & Research","seniority":"junior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Pasadena, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":65000,"max":95000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":95000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":2,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Flow Cytometry","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-05-21T17:53:19Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-05-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-30T20:29:21Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":162,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":[],"days_open":160},"description":"Melody is an early-stage focused research organization engineering continuous molecular monitoring technology and designing closed-loop interventions for human health. We leverage protein engineering, medical device engineering, and physiology modeling. As a FRO, we uniquely bridge blue-sky science and hardcore manufacturing and pioneer new applications.\nWe are a nonprofit startup based in Pasadena, founded by scientists and engineers from Janelia and Caltech and incubated by Convergent Research. Our goal is to produce public goods: biosensors, devices, datasets, protocols, and tools that help launch a broader field of real-time molecular medicine.\nAbout the role: we are hiring a Research Associate to work with the scientific team to build and run Melody’s bioelectronics foundry. You will be responsible for evolving and testing new protein biosensors. Your work will involve molecular biology, liquid handling robotics, and novel hardware developed by the team for running biophysical assays. You will work closely with the chemistry and device engineering teams to move biosensor candidates from DNA constructs to purified proteins, screening data, device-relevant assays, and quantitative performance measurements.\nYou may excel in this role if you enjoy using an engineering mindset in wet lab biology, developing an intuition of how proteins behave from hands-on work, and working in a team-setting to pioneer new methods. Specifically you will:\nExpress and purify engineered binders and biosensors.\nDesign, order, and prepare DNA constructs, mutant libraries, and binder-reporter variants.\nRun fluorescence, plate-reader, biochemical, biophysical, and novel device-based assays.\nGenerate dose-response curves and quantify EC50/Kd, dynamic range, signal-to-noise, selectivity, kinetics, reversibility, stability, and drift.\nSupport yeast display, FACS-based screening, and directed evolution workflows.\nInterface biosensors with optical and electrochemical readouts on benchtop hardware.\nHelp automate assay workflows using liquid handlers, plate readers, and custom scripts.\nMaintain clean records of constructs, samples, sequence-function relationships, assay metadata, instrument settings, and experimental results.\nCollaborate with scientists and engineers to turn one-off assays into repeatable workflows that scale to the needs of the platform.\nRequired Qualifications:\nBA or BS in biology, chemistry, physics or other relevant field. \n2+ years experience in wet lab bench involving protein engineering or biophysical assays.\nDemonstrated precision in experimental work and project management.\nPreferred Qualifications:\nExtensive knowledge of biophysical methods and associated instrumentation for thermodynamics and kinetics measurements. \nAbility to write custom scripts in Python/R for data analysis\nExperience with lab automation techniques including liquid handling robots.\nExperience with biomaterial preparation and protein functionalization chemistry. \nFamiliarity with industry standards in protein and device 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