Molecular Screening Intern

Based in Berkeley, CA, UPSIDE Foods grows meat, poultry, and seafood directly from animal cells.  These products are not vegan or vegetarian—they are delicious meat, made without the need to raise and slaughter billions of animals. UPSIDE Foods recently became the first company in the world to receive the US FDA greenlight for cultivated meat, and UPSIDE’s cultivated chicken will be available to consumers following USDA inspection and label approval.

Founded as the world’s first cultivated meat company in 2015, UPSIDE Foods (formerly Memphis Meats) has achieved numerous industry-defining milestones, including being the first company to produce multiple species of meat (beef, chicken, and duck). The company believes that people shouldn’t have to choose between the foods they love and a thriving planet, and is working to build a better food system with access to delicious, humane, and sustainable meat, poultry, and seafood. UPSIDE Foods has won various industry awards, including New York Times’ Good Tech Awards, FastCo’s Next Big Thing in Tech, and the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation by the National Association for Business Resources. UPSIDE Foods has raised a total of $608 million, including from the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (ADG), Baillie Gifford, Bill Gates, Cargill, John Doerr, John Mackey, Kimbal and Christiana Musk, Norwest, Richard Branson, Softbank, Temasek, Threshold, Tyson Foods, and others.

About this internship

We work with a lot of cells, and we need to identify the ones that will make the tastiest meat! To pick out those needles in a haystack, our Upstream Development team is constantly looking for new methods to screen more cells in less time, all while learning meaningful lessons about the biological processes and how they predict product characteristics. This Molecular Screening intern will be tasked with building out and miniaturizing a molecular assay with the cell line screening team. The role will blend molecular biology, lab automation (robots!), and processes across our cell line generation pipeline to help build out our high-throughput screening toolbox.

Responsibilities include

• Learning all about high-throughput molecular screening!
• Scientific literature reviews to generate hypotheses and contextualize work
• Assay development/miniaturization and validation
• Performing experiments with candidate cell lines, and analyzing data
• Lab automation scripting, if interested

About you

• Rising junior, rising senior, or graduating senior in college
• Strong scientific curiosity and creative problem-solving
• Background in cell biology; experience with molecular techniques (e.g. qPCR) is a plus
• Data or computer-science orientation is a plus
• Comfortable showing initiative in highly collaborative settings

Who you’ll work with

• This role will work with the Upstream Development team within the R&D department, and collaborate day-to-day with 4-6 Upsiders.
• High-throughput screening sits in between a lot of fields! You’ll get to interface with scientists & subject matter experts in cell line screening, molecular assay development, automation, and more.