What are the responsibilities and job description for the Laboratory Technician position at Claryx?
About Claryx
Claryx is building the hospital immune system, reading the genomes of confirmed patient infections, linking related cases as outbreaks, and tracing each back to its likely source. When that source is in the building (a sink, a shared piece of equipment, a particular room), Claryx finds it by matching the patient’s strain against a digital twin of the hospital’s microbiome, sequenced from its air, its water and its surfaces, all on proprietary chemistry cheap enough to run continuously. Founded by brothers Kurt and Dirk Hackenberger, Claryx is based in New York and is live across multiple health systems.
The Role
We’re hiring a Laboratory Technician to help run our existing molecular workflow: nucleic acid extraction from complex environmental samples and isolates, qPCR panels, and library prep for sequencing. It’s a hands-on support role alongside our Laboratory Lead, and the main job is keeping that workflow running reliably as sample volume grows.
Our partner hospitals send samples on their schedule, so collection, extraction, assays and sequencing each have to happen in a set window, and everything downstream, from the analysis to what goes back to the hospital, depends on that timing holding. You don't need to have done every step before, we're happy to train someone careful and reliable.
Key Responsibilities
- Sample processing. Accession incoming samples and take them through extraction across air, water, surface and swab matrices, under strict contamination control.
- Molecular assays. Run qPCR/RT-qPCR panels for our priority pathogens and resistance targets, plus library prep for sequencing.
- Automation. Operate an automated liquid handler and help move manual steps onto it.
- Field collection. Scheduled sample pickups from partner hospitals, maintaining chain of custody.
- Lab operations. Inventory, reagent prep, instrument upkeep, and complete ELN/LIMS records.
- Optimization. Identify workflow steps that can be improved and develop/test modifications.
Qualifications
- B.S. or higher. Molecular biology, microbiology, biochemistry, or similar. 0-2 years of hands-on experience, including laboratory work for grad school. BSL-2 experience is a plus.
- Core molecular techniques. Nucleic acid extraction and qPCR. Library prep, protein purification, and automated liquid handling experience are a plus.
- Careful record-keeping. ELN/LIMS discipline to maintain strong documentation of all samples.
- Valid driver’s license. The role includes scheduled sample pickups.
Practicalities
You'd start by running the workflow and grow into assay development, QC ownership and the automation build-out (Research Associate, then Senior Research Associate), then train and lead the people we hire after you. For the right person the path runs all the way to Laboratory Director, running the lab and the team as we expand from a few NYC hospitals to health systems across the country. You’d report to the Laboratory Lead and work closely with our computational team. It’s fully onsite in Long Island City. The work is BSL-2 and includes weekly travel to partner sites around New York City.