Research Assistant · cover letter
[Date]
Dear [Hiring Manager],
During my two years in a molecular biology lab, I ran the PCR and cell culture work behind a study that moved from raw data to a published manuscript in 11 months, roughly half our group's usual timeline, and I earned second authorship for the analysis I contributed. I would be glad to bring that pace and rigor to the research team at [Company].
My day to day spans the full arc of a project. I help design experiments, build and follow IRB approved protocols, and collect data across cell culture, PCR, and immunoassay workflows. I then analyze results myself in R, which let me catch a batch effect in our sequencing data that would have skewed three figures had it gone unnoticed. I also handle the literature review that frames each new aim, screening 40 to 60 papers per question and summarizing the findings our PI uses to set direction.
Documentation is the part I treat as non negotiable. I keep electronic lab notebooks current the same day, version every analysis script, and write methods sections detailed enough that a new member can reproduce a result without asking me. That habit is what made our last two grant reports easy to assemble.
The eleven-month timeline held because the analysis pipeline was written before the data came in, and the notebooks and the code are yours to read before we talk.
Warm regards,
[Your Name]
[Phone]
[Email]