Merge Labs is a frontier research lab working to bridge biological and artificial intelligence. It is developing new approaches to brain-computer interfaces that interact with the brain at high bandwidth, integrate with advanced AI, and are intended to be safe and accessible.

About the team

The Bio team designs, builds and characterizes the biotechnologies underpinning Merge's brain-computer interfaces, combining molecular engineering, synthetic biology, neuroscience and physical methods such as ultrasound to establish less invasive, high-bandwidth connections with neurons.

About the role

This role designs, builds and optimizes the genetic payloads determining how, how much, where and when Merge's molecular tools are expressed in the brain. You will develop mammalian gene circuits and multigene architectures controlling stoichiometry, timing and cell-type specificity, and establish scalable workflows to test them rapidly.

What you will do

• Design mammalian genetic-circuit strategies controlling component stoichiometry, expression level, timing, cell-type specificity and cellular burden.
• Build and characterize synthetic constructs at high throughput using modular libraries of promoters, UTRs, introns, polyadenylation signals, codon usage, gene order and polycistronic elements.
• Develop compact expression-control systems such as inducible switches, dual-vector logic, feedback circuits and microRNA-based regulation.
• Engineer host-cell compatibility across protein trafficking and turnover, proteostasis, metabolic burden, cellular stress, intracellular immune sensing and transgene silencing.
• Translate expression requirements into payload architectures compatible with viral and non-viral delivery.
• Characterize expression and function in mammalian cells and neurons, and evaluate lead payloads in animal models with the in vivo operations team.

You might thrive here if you have

• A PhD in synthetic biology, bioengineering or molecular biology, or equivalent experience leading research projects end to end.
• A record of designing and experimentally validating mammalian gene circuits or tunable expression systems.
• Proficiency in molecular cloning, library construction, mammalian cell expression and quantitative characterization.
• Experience establishing systematic or high-throughput construct-testing workflows.