ML/Computational Biology Scientist

Kerna Labs is building foundation models of RNA biology to discover and develop better genetic medicines. Our mission is to leverage advanced computational techniques and high-throughput biology to fundamentally change the way we do drug discovery and development.

Kerna Labs was founded by industry veterans with deep expertise in building machine learning models for RNA. At Kerna, you’ll be surrounded by exceptional team members who are curious, driven, and humble, including:

• Founding Scientist of Deep Genomics who built the ML platform and led the team behind BigRNA
• The former Chief Scientific Officer of Moderna
• 2nd-time founder of a biomaterials company
• PhDs in Machine Learning and Biology from Stanford, MIT, Princeton and the University of Toronto

The Role

As one of the first scientific hires at Kerna Labs, you will play a pivotal role in advancing our RNA foundation models. You’ll apply your skills in machine learning to build and scale models that learn the underlying rules of RNA biology, in order to design mRNA drugs with superior properties than any existing approach.

In the first month, you’ll be responsible for the next OOM model scaling of our RNA foundation model. In the next two months, you’ll implement a diffusion based model for designing novel mRNA sequences. In the next three months, collaborating closely with our experimental team you will implement an active learning loop to enable efficient search of the mRNA design space.

Your Responsibilities

• Build scalable model training and evaluation pipelines for multi-billion parameter RNA foundation models
• Implement active learning to help prioritize regions of the search space for internal data generation
• Build data analysis pipelines for public and internal proprietary datasets
• Analyze multi-modal datasets using bioinformatics tools, custom pipelines, and workflow managers
• Drive scientific and engineering excellence: establish yourself as a leader within the team, training and mentoring the additional scientists we plan to hire

Who You Are

• Degree in computer science, software engineering or related field
• Experience in building ML models for biological data
• Strong software engineering skills and mindset
• Optional: Experience training large sequence based models, experience building NGS analysis pipelines
• Team player with ownership mindset and proactive approach
• Thrive in environments with high levels of complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity
• Passionate about applying ML towards therapeutic design
• Drawn to difficult problems and crafting long-term solutions

Working at Kerna Labs

• A salary of $125,000 - $200,000, with additional significant equity
• An opportunity to work on the cutting edge of AI applied to biology, on a platform that can transform drug discovery and development as we know it
• Access to world class mentors and advisors, with opportunities for personal and professional growth within a fast-growing biotech startup
• Competitive compensation in salary and equity, with additional benefits including health, dental, and vision insurance, quarterly retreats
• And most importantly, having fun while building a transformational product!

We’re excited to be backed by

• Top-tier venture firms in AI, biotech, and deeptech like Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund) and Susa Ventures
• The best minds in biotech like Patrick Hsu (cofounder of the Arc Institute), Melissa J Moore (CSO of Moderna), Jacob Kimmel (cofounder of NewLimit)

Join us in our mission of turning RNA into a universal toolkit for genetic medicine.