--- title: 'Member of Scientific Staff, Cell Culture and Functional Assays at Substrate Bio' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-scientific-staff-cell-culture-and-functional-assays-substrate-bio-9j35c427kp0a' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-21' --- # Member of Scientific Staff, Cell Culture and Functional Assays at Substrate Bio - **Company:** Substrate Bio - **Location:** London, United Kingdom - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-20 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-21 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/substrate-bio/6f0d6c7e-6cf5-4597-b600-cae740781a19 ## Job description LOCATION: King's Cross, London · PATTERN: Lab-based, full-time The opportunity We're a stealth startup in AI and bio, building infrastructure for data generation. The team is small and elite, the problems are hard, and the foundations are being laid right now. You'd help write them from the first line, with real ownership and a direct line to the founders. This role covers the cell side of our protein characterisation work. You would keep the cell lines healthy and run the assays that show how a designed protein behaves on a living cell, week after week, to the same standard. ## About us AI for biology has a data problem. The data that matters most doesn't exist yet, so we're building the infrastructure to produce it, with quality and traceability built in from day one. We're in stealth and heads-down on execution. We'll share more about what we're building once you've spoken with the team. ## The role You will run cell culture and the cell-based assays for our protein characterisation work. That means the mammalian lines the assays depend on, from thaw through routine passage to a banked and documented stock, and the weekly rhythm of seeding, treating, reading and reporting plates. Most of it runs in 384-well plates with imaging-based or flow cytometry readouts. You will run those assays as designed, with the controls and replicates that make a curve defensible, and you will be the person who notices when a plate, a line or a reagent lot has started to drift. Assay design and the shape of the cascade sit with the scientist who leads this work today, so you are not being asked to invent the panel. You are being asked to make it run the same way every week, to record what you did in a form the rest of the system can read, and to tighten the protocols as they settle, including moving them towards the plate formats our automation will take on. ## Your first 90 days ## FIRST 30 DAYS ◆ Take over routine culture and banking for the protein cell lines, working to the protocols we already run. ◆ Learn the panel end to end by running each assay alongside the scientist who owns it. ## DAYS 30 TO 60 ◆ Run at least one assay in the panel independently, including its controls and acceptance criteria. ◆ Revise one culture or assay protocol so that someone else could follow it without asking you. ## DAYS 60 TO 90 ◆ Hold the weekly assay schedule on your own and return results on the agreed turnaround. ◆ Bring one protocol to a tighter precision bar, or into a plate format ready for automation. ## Who you are You are a hands-on cell biologist who takes assay variability personally. You have run the same assay often enough to tell a real effect from a bad plate, and you would rather find the cause than repeat the run. The week has a rhythm in this job: cells to feed, plates to seed, runs to finish, numbers to return. You are happy with that, you keep records someone else can pick up, and you say early when something looks wrong rather than at the end of the week. We do not hire people into boxes. The team is small, and early hires here end up owning work beyond the job they joined for. Nobody arrives with every part of this role. If you are strong in most of it and quick to learn the rest, we want to hear from you. ## MUST HAVE ◆ Strong hands-on mammalian cell culture: adherent and suspension lines, aseptic technique, and thawing, passaging and banking to a high and consistent standard. ◆ Experience running cell-based assays end to end, including relevant controls, replicates and dose-response curves behind a reported number. ◆ Comfort with plate-based work and the arithmetic that goes with it, such as dilution series, plate maps and normalisation. ◆ Careful, traceable record-keeping that someone else can follow without asking you. ◆ A PhD in cell biology, pharmacology, immunology or a related field, or an MSc and two to three years of relevant lab experience. ## NICE TO HAVE ◆ Reporter cell line bioassays for binding or blockade. ◆ Receptor internalisation, lysosomal trafficking or cytotoxicity assays. ◆ High-content or fluorescence imaging, and the image analysis behind it. ◆ 384-well formats, liquid handlers or other plate-based automation. ◆ Flow cytometry, for example for surface receptor quantification. ## Why this is unusual Most cell-based assay roles sit inside a discovery project. You build an assay, you answer a question with it, and the assay goes quiet. This one is closer to running an instrument. The same assays run every week against a stream of new molecules, and the number that comes out is the product. That changes what good looks like. Precision matters more than novelty, a protocol is only finished when someone else can run it and get your answer, and every passage, plate and reagent lot is captured as structured data, because a result is only as trustworthy as the cells behind it. Some people find that energising; some find it outside their lane. Worth knowing in advance which one you are. ## How we work This is a lab-based role at our site in King's Cross, London. The cells are in the lab, so most of your week will be too, with room for writing and analysis away from the bench. The wider team is distributed and travels, so you will work with people who are not always in the building. We work in the open. Decisions are written down, work happens centrally rather than scattered across tools, and the week opens with a session the whole company attends. There is a quarterly offsite. Each person owns their area and makes the call inside it, and we will expect that of you early rather than late. UK benefits are 30 days of annual leave plus public holidays, a pension with a 10% employer contribution, and top-tier Bupa private health cover. More is added as the team grows. The team you will join You will join the protein characterisation team and report to its lead. Day to day you will work with the scientist who designs the assay cascade, with the protein production and molecular characterisation scientists upstream of you, with the functional genomics team who share the cell culture suite, and with the engineers building the software and automation the lab runs on. We are a small, elite team, and this is the first seat given entirely to the cell-based side of the work. Our process Our process has four stages. A short screening call about the role and the practicalities. A behavioural interview about how you work, run from the same template for every candidate, before anything technical. A technical stage with the protein characterisation team, built around real work rather than a puzzle, including time with us in person at the lab. Then references, aimed at whatever we still want to understand. If you are not sure whether you match every line above, apply anyway. We would rather read it and decide. We are an equal opportunity employer. We make hiring decisions on merit, scope-fit, and the strength of the working relationship we expect to build with each hire. Applications welcome from candidates of any background. ## About Substrate Bio ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Substrate Bio is building a network of fully autonomous wet laboratories that produce the high-quality, structured data that foundation models in biology are bottlenecked on. - **Entity Type**: Private (Pre-Seed stage, funded by a combination of venture funding and government grants) - **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom (King’s Cross) - **Founded**: 2023 (Incorporated June 13, 2023) - **Founders**: Mostafa ElSayed (CEO, also founder of Automata), Oli Hoy (formerly VP Customer Experience at Automata), Alexey Morgunov (AI Scientist co-founder), and a founding biology lead joining shortly. ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Deep Tech, Biotech / Life Sciences, AI-driven biology, Lab Automation - **Target customers**: B2B; foundation model labs, global pharmaceutical companies, and AI-driven biology researchers. - **Mission or purpose statement**: To become the critical infrastructure layer for AI-driven biological discovery by building a network of autonomous wet labs that operate in a closed loop with foundation models. ## Products & Services - **Autonomous Wet Lab Platform**: A network of fully autonomous wet laboratories (first node in King’s Cross, London) where pipetting robots run continuously, executing experiments end-to-end with no human intervention. The labs return structured data within hours. - **Closed-Loop Integration with Foundation Models**: The platform is designed so that foundation models design the experiments and read the results in real time. Better data improves the models, and better models design better experiments. - **Token-Based Usage Pricing**: Access to the platform is sold on a usage basis via a token-based model that maps physical inputs (instrument time, materials, compute, complexity) onto a cleaner customer-facing unit of value. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (likely pre-seed/seed stage, funded by founders and undisclosed angels). - **Key Metric**: Total Funding — Not publicly disclosed, but funded in parallel by venture funding and government grants (including ARIA and DSIT grants). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly named. The company is spinning out of Automata, the UK lab automation company. - **Growth Signals**: Active hiring in 2026 (Head of Functional Genomics, Chemistry Principal Scientist, Financial Controller). Targeting a team of ~32 people by the end of Q1 2027. First lab node opening in King’s Cross, London, with several integrated workcells and two scientific verticals online by mid-2027. ## Competitive Advantages - **Autonomous, Not a Cloud Lab or CRO**: Substrate is building a fully autonomous lab platform with closed-loop integration, differentiating itself from traditional cloud labs or contract research organizations (CROs). - **Data Quality for AI**: The core thesis is that the bottleneck in AI-driven biology is high-quality, structured experimental data. Substrate’s automated labs are designed to produce this data at scale, creating a unique moat. - **Open Access Model**: Researchers access the platform through an API with no minimum commitment and no exclusivity, lowering the barrier to entry for AI labs. - **Deep Integration with Foundation Models**: The platform is built from the ground up to operate in a closed loop with AI models, not as an afterthought. ## Strategic Focus - **Building the First Node**: The immediate priority is opening the first autonomous lab node in King’s Cross, London, and getting two scientific verticals online by mid-2027. - **Scaling the Team**: Aggressively hiring senior scientific and operational talent to build the experimental protocols and finance function. - **Commercial Model**: Developing and stress-testing a token-based usage pricing model that translates physical lab capacity into customer cost. - **Grant and Venture Funding**: Managing parallel ARIA and DSIT grants alongside a venture round to fund capital-intensive lab infrastructure. ## Why Work Here - **High-Impact, Foundational Work**: This is a deeply unusual finance and engineering problem — building the infrastructure layer for AI biology from scratch. The work directly addresses a critical bottleneck in the field. - **Founding Team & Culture**: The company is led by four co-founders with deep expertise in lab automation (Automata), AI, and biology. The culture is described as hybrid with a strong in-person presence (at least three days a week in King’s Cross). - **Unique Finance Role**: The Financial Controller role, for example, is described as "the single highest-impact piece of finance work in the company," blending finance, product, and pricing work. - **Growth Trajectory**: The company is scaling from 4 co-founders to ~32 people by Q1 2027, offering early employees significant ownership and influence. - **Location**: Based in King’s Cross, London, a major tech and life sciences hub. ## Sources 1. [substratebio.ai](https://substratebio.ai/) 2. [Companies House - Substrate Bio Ltd](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/17191596) 3. [Companies House - Officers](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/17191596/officers) 4. [AshbyHQ - Financial Controller Job Posting](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/substrate-bio/a440fcca-aa12-42e6-9997-611463f8ddf4) 5. [AshbyHQ - Chemistry Principal Scientist Job Posting](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/substrate-bio/7d15e5f9-3f0b-4ad6-abce-c83bf4ed8eb1) 6. [BeBee - Head of Functional Genomics Job Posting](https://bebee.com/gb/jobs/head-of-functional-genomics-substrate-bio-london--theirstack-688561239) 7. [Startuply.vc - Substrate Bio Profile](https://startuply.vc/startup/substrate-bio-u76ba) 8. [Startuply.vc - Article on Substrate Bio Hiring](https://startuply.vc/article/substrate-bio-is-hiring-for-a-fully-automated-wet-lab-that-doesn-t-yet-exist-ioy8to) ## Other roles at Substrate Bio - [Member of Scientific Staff, Protein Production](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-scientific-staff-protein-production-substrate-bio-london-b0r8362ywazw) — London, United Kingdom - [Member of Scientific Staff, Computational Chemistry](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-scientific-staff-computational-chemistry-substrate-bio-london-gnvrza03pbc9) — London, United Kingdom - [Member of Scientific Staff, Cell Line Development](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-scientific-staff-cell-line-development-substrate-bio-london-dpem152a9trk) — London, United Kingdom - [Protein Production Scientist, Biologics](https://feeny.ai/job/protein-production-scientist-biologics-substrate-bio-london-j9tks50dnee6) — London, United Kingdom - [Member of Technical Staff, Intelligence](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-intelligence-substrate-bio-london-x22edfw5dq03) — London, United Kingdom - [Member of Technical Staff, Intelligence - Functoional Genomics](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-intelligence-functoional-genomics-substrate-bio-london-hc5g0evaggx7) — London, United Kingdom - [Member of Technical Staff, Software](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-software-substrate-bio-london-1ap71r57hp67) — London, United Kingdom - [Lab Operations Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/lab-operations-manager-substrate-bio-london-6hqtcygvvv2m) — London, United Kingdom - [Molecular Characterisation Scientist, Biologics](https://feeny.ai/job/molecular-characterisation-scientist-biologics-substrate-bio-london-mtfkrd1s2mqt) — London, United Kingdom