About Us:

Haystack Oncology is a precision medicine company based on over two decades of technology & clinical development in the field of liquid biopsy. The core technology development is led by Dr. Bert Vogelstein and his team at Johns Hopkins who envisioned & pioneered the concept of liquid biopsy for non-invasive cancer screening, molecular characterization, therapy monitoring, and detection of minimal residual disease (MRD). The mission of Haystack Oncology is to develop and deliver to the clinic a best-in-class personalized cancer diagnostics to identify the maximal number of patients with residual, recurrent, and resistant disease that stand to benefit from proactive clinical interventions. Haystack Oncology’s best-in-class MRD test has the potential to benefit all patients with solid tumors, independent of tissue of origin and dramatically improve outcomes for patients with cancer. Haystack’s more sensitive earlier detection of lurking disease means better chances for cure.

Summary of Position:

The Laboratory Automation Engineer is responsible for developing, implementing, and scaling automated workflows within a regulated next-generation sequencing molecular diagnostics lab. The successful candidate will be directly responsible for contributing to all aspects of assay/ reagent manufacturing automation development from concept, requirements definition, and manual assay development to adaptation, optimization, troubleshooting and validation. Will leverage an understanding of molecular biology and biochemistry to troubleshoot analytical and preparation processes. Apply scientific methods and engineering skills to improve the scalability of processing workflows.

The ideal candidate will have prior, demonstrated experience designing, developing, testing, implementing, and supporting automated sample-processing workflows using a requirements-driven approach in a clinical laboratory or other molecular biology-based laboratory settings. Will leverage an understanding laboratory automation hardware and software to troubleshoot analytical and preparative processes.

You will have and develop a clear understanding business and user requirements for improving efficiency, throughput, and quality to optimize, test, and implement robust, scalable solutions for sample processing workflows

Required Qualifications

BS degree in engineering or science, preferably in molecular biology, genetics or biochemistry, bioengineering, chemical engineering, or a closely related discipline and 5+ years of related experience. An MS or Ph.D. with 3+ years of relevant work experience.
Hands-on experience with operating and programming liquid handling robotics and robot platforms
Experience with liquid handlers (Hamilton, Bravo, Agilent, Tecan, Beckman Coulter, etc.)
Experience managing or supervising a small group of employees.
Background working in regulated laboratory environments (CLIA, IVD)
Highly skilled in streamlining workflows and developing automated laboratory processes and instrumentation systems, including collecting and documenting requirements, developing concepts, design, testing/validation, implementing, and training
Experience with operating and programming liquid handling robotics platforms (Hamilton preferred, TECAN, Beckman, Agilent)
Highly skilled with standard molecular biology techniques such as nucleic acid isolation, purification, and quantitation, bioanalyzer, DNA/RNA quantitation, qPCR or next-generation sequencing
NGS or Diagnostic company background a plus

Primary duties and essential responsibilities

Contribute to development of new assay processes, reagent manufacturing processes and automation of laboratory workflows.
Contribute to the design, development, optimization, and implementation of automated liquid handling processes, systems, and streamlined workflows.
Collaborate closely with other development, operation, and quality & regulatory teams to enable the development and implementation of new workflows.
Contribute to protocol generation, report writing and presentation preparation.
Troubleshoot liquid handling systems and workflows as necessary
Analyze workflows, identify bottlenecks, and develop solutions to improve efficiency, throughput, cost, and quality and integrate these systems with the laboratory information management system.
Write programs for liquid handling workstations and integrated robotic systems

What to expect at Haystack Oncology

Participation in the development of an innovative technology with an international team and the world’s leading cancer genetics experts such as leading investigators of modern cancer genetics Bert Vogelstein, Ken Kinzler, and Nick Papadoploulos.
An international and exciting environment
Above-average development opportunities in an up-and-coming start-up company (see our recent listing as a notable start-up of 2022 as per top investors in the field https://www.businessinsider.co... ; https://www.newsbreak.com/news... )