Design Co-op, Experimental Biology
Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world in order to answer the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our bioengineers make use of in-house automated experimental and computational platforms for designing, building and testing new organisms.
The Design team supports Ginkgo’s organism engineering programs by helping to design, test and analyze new strains, molecules and constructs. As a part of Ginkgo’s foundry we provide computational biology expertise to diverse projects, and work to expand Ginkgo’s genetic engineering platform with the development of novel computational tools, using statistical and machine-learning based approaches to develop world-changing methods for engineering biology.
As a Design Team Intern in Experimental Biology, you’ll support Ginkgo’s organism engineering programs by 1) designing genetic constructs and libraries, 2) doing experiments to introduce these libraries into E. coli, mammalian cells, plant cells, and/or various yeast species, 3) developing and analyzing the results of high throughput genetic screens to optimize strains, vectors and molecules, and 4) helping to expand Ginkgo’s genetic engineering platform with the development of novel computational and experimental tools and re-usable platforms.
Possible projects include:
- Design libraries of tens of thousands of genetically engineered microbes, and use high-throughput assays and NGS to identify the best variants.
- Design, Build, and Test libraries of genetic elements to enable rational engineering in new and diverse species of microbes.
- Design and implement pooled & multiplexed approaches to screening enzyme variants, and predict further improvements through iterative design cycles.
The Ginkgo Bioworks Early Talent program is open to students who will return to their degree programs upon completion of their employment at Ginkgo. Candidates must be enrolled in a United States based institution and/or have work authorization in the United States to be eligible to participate.
Responsibilities
- Design of new microbial strains and cell lines, and genetic constructs such as plasmids
- Design of experiments to test the effects of genetic perturbations and construct designs
- Learn and execute standard synthetic biology protocols, including PCR, cloning, culturing various organisms, genome editing, flow cytometry, growth-rate assays.
- Communicate scientific and technical information within and across Ginkgo’s teams
- Document your work, including creating reports that both present and draw conclusions from data
Minimum Requirements
- Currently enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program (current sophomore or junior at the time of application), majoring in Biology or Computational Biology
- Experience doing PCR, and transformation of DNA into any organism
Preferred Capabilities and Experience
- Candidates with experience in mammalian cell culture and non-yeast fungal systems are especially encouraged to apply
- The candidate will have taken one or more biology courses, ideally genetics or molecular biology
- Some experience in one or more of the following: Cloning, NGS data analysis, FACS, genome editing, growth-rate assays
We also feel that it’s important to point out the obvious here – there’s a serious lack of diversity in our industry, and that needs to change. Our goal is to help drive that change. Ginkgo is deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all of its practices, especially when it comes to growing our team. Our culture promotes inclusion and embraces how rewarding it is to work with people from all walks of life.
We’re developing a powerful biological engineering platform, so we must remain mindful of the many ways our technology can – and will – impact people around the world. We care about how our platform is used, and having a diverse team to build it gives us the best chance that it’s something we’ll be proud of as it continues to grow. Therefore, it’s critical that we incorporate the diverse voices and visions of all those who play a role in the future of biology.
It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants.