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Salary: EUR 40,000 - 0 / annual
Parallel Bio is building human-first drug discovery powered by organoids and AI. The company has achieved 87% concordance with clinical patient data—vastly outperforming the 3% translational success rate of animal models—and is working with major pharma partners including three Fortune 500 companies. The role is based in Vienna and focuses on three core areas:
Derivation, Quality Control & Biobanking: Derive induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from donor blood through cell isolation, colony picking, clonal expansion, and cryopreservation. Interpret quality control data using internationally recognized acceptance criteria to determine pass/fail status. Identify and reduce sources of variation affecting iPSC generation success as the biobank scales.
Organoid Development: Maintain iPSC and primary cultures to consistent standards. Differentiate iPSCs toward immune organoids using in-house protocols. Run iterative optimization cycles—changing conditions, measuring effects, and retaining successful approaches. Improve organoid longevity, reproducibility, and functional performance against intended phenotypes.
Assays & Data: Design, validate, and run readouts demonstrating organoid functionality, including flow cytometry panels, qPCR, immunofluorescence, imaging, ELISA, and Luminex. Prepare samples for external sequencing (bulk RNA-seq, scRNA-seq, whole exome) and manage submissions with providers. Perform routine equipment maintenance. Interpret your own data—particularly flow analysis—and present conclusions rather than raw data. Document work in electronic lab notebooks and write standard operating procedures (SOPs) as processes evolve.
Team & Culture: Collaborate with the US team on platform comparison and mentor junior researchers as the team grows. Share expertise with colleagues, present findings in internal meetings, and constructively challenge conclusions. Flag when data does not support drawn conclusions and report ambiguous results with the same rigor as clean findings.
The role requires rotating weekend work to maintain cell cultures and ensure experimental continuity.
Requirements:
- MSc in molecular biology, cell biology, immunology, bioengineering, or related field
- Strong preference for aseptic human pluripotent stem cell culture (iPSC or ESC); otherwise minimum one year tissue culture experience with excellent aseptic technique
- Hands-on experience with standard molecular and cellular assays: flow cytometry (including panel design and independent analysis), qPCR, and ELISA
- Advantageous: experience with reprogramming, clonal derivation, karyotyping, genotyping, or cryopreservation at scale; 3D culture, organoid, or spheroid experience; immunology knowledge (particularly lymphocyte biology); NGS sample preparation
- Comfortable working on systems still being defined; able to distinguish real signal from failed experiments
- Treat reproducibility as an interesting problem; maintain standards under time pressure
- Strong organizational discipline and attention to detail; familiarity with electronic lab notebooks or laboratory information systems essential (sample traceability is central)
- Team player, quick to help across disciplines
- Excellent English (working language); German is a plus
