Molecular Biology Experts

Molecular Biology Experts

$70-$105 per hour

Hourly contract Remote UK

New opportunity

Early applicant

Join a leading AI lab's cutting-edge GenAI team to be at the core of the AI revolution, where your expertise fuels the development of the most advanced models for science.

A leading AI lab is building models that reason across the life sciences, and we're assembling a small cohort of molecular biologists to elevate the quality of the training data. The focus is the design of DNA and RNA sequences — the work a molecular biologist does prior to conducting experiments — including primers, plasmids, guide RNAs, mRNA constructs, and repair templates. This is a part-time to full-time commitment of up to 40 hours per week, fully remote within the United Kingdom.

Design and review DNA/RNA sequences and constructs — primers (PCR/qPCR/cloning), plasmids and expression vectors, gRNA/sgRNA for CRISPR editing, mRNA/RNA constructs, and HDR/repair templates — drawn from your professional experience.

Author challenging, domain-grounded design tasks and write accurate, well-documented solutions that serve as ground truth.

Evaluate AI model outputs against expert-quality solutions and provide clear, written feedback on correctness, rigor, and biological reasoning.

Justify design choices at the sequence level — guide/target selection, homology-arm length, primer melting temperature and specificity, codon optimization, and regulatory elements.

Collaborate with other subject-matter experts to keep the training data consistent and accurate.

A practicing (or recently practicing) molecular biologist with hands-on experience designing nucleic-acid constructs prior to experiments — across several of primers, plasmids/vectors, gRNA/sgRNA, mRNA, and HDR/repair templates — together with cloning strategy (Gibson, Golden Gate, Gateway, restriction) and codon optimization.

A strong peer-reviewed publication record is a key measure of expertise — first-author work in notable venues such as Nature (and the Nature family), Cell, eLife, Nucleic Acids Research, PNAS, and EMBO Journal is especially valued. Please include publication links with your application.

An advanced degree (PhD strongly preferred) in molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, synthetic biology, bioengineering, or a related life-science field.

Strong written communication and the ability to justify design choices clearly and rigorously.

The program is onboarding a small cohort of experts to design and evaluate nucleic-acid sequence tasks, with strong potential to extend for well-performing contributors.

Fast start — the program is aiming to begin as soon as onboarding is complete.

You will be engaged as an independent contractor.

This is a fully remote role that can be completed on your own schedule.

Projects can be extended, shortened, or concluded early depending on needs and performance.

Your work at Mercor will not involve access to confidential or proprietary information from any employer, client, or institution.

Payments are weekly on Stripe or Wise based on services rendered.

Please note: We are unable to support H1-B or STEM OPT candidates at this time.

Mercor partners with leading AI labs and enterprises to train frontier models using human expertise. You will work on projects that focus on training and enhancing AI systems. You will be paid competitively, collaborate with leading researchers, and help shape the next generation of AI systems in your area of expertise.

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