Wet Lab Protein Engineer (Selective Molecular Recognition)

Position Overview

AV and the AFRL Biological Materials and Processing Research Team are seeking a Protein Engineer to spearhead the directed evolution and screening pipelines of proteins for high-affinity ion coordination.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate Computational Designs to the Bench: Serve as the primary bridge between dry-lab and wet-lab operations; take candidate designs, scaffolds, and libraries generated by the computational biology team and successfully translate them into physical, high-diversity protein libraries.

• Library Construction & Directed Evolution: Generate protein/peptide libraries using advanced molecular biology techniques.

• High-Throughput Screening & Selection: Develop and execute robust, automated HTS assays (such as cell-surface display or plate-based fluorimetry) to screen designs for highly selective Rare Earth Element (REE) binding, successfully isolating rare "hit" variants from background noise.

• Data Integration & Loop Closure: Analyze screening data to identify sequence-activity relationships. Feed this high-quality experimental data back to the computational design team to validate their predictive models, troubleshoot failures, and guide the design of the next, smarter round of directed evolution.

• Assay Optimization: Continually refine screening pressures (pH, competing transition metals, lanthanide concentrations) to ensure the assay environment accurately reflects industrial bio-purification conditions. Test assay environments with candidate protein variants "hits" at pilot-scale levels.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Ph.D. in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Bioengineering, Biophysics, or a related field. (Candidates with an M.S. and 4+ years of high-throughput engineering will be considered).

• Protein Engineering: Design, optimize, and characterize proteins and biologics using state-of-the-art molecular biology and high-throughput screening techniques. Collaborate cross-functionally to translate engineered proteins into robust, scalable solutions for real-world applications.

• Technical Expertise: High-throughput Recombinant protein production in E. Coli and/or possible yeast surface display.

Preferred Skills

• Laboratory Familiarity: Experience with (or willingness to learn) biophysical characterization techniques (ITC, SPR, Fluorescence) to help interpret experimental data.

• Automation/High-Throughput Screening: Experience with high-throughput liquid handling robots or automated screening workflows. Demonstrated experience developing and running robust selection/screening assays (e.g., yeast/phage display, plate-based fluorescence, or cell-free translation systems).

• Bio-Interfacial Modeling: Knowledge of how proteins behave when tethered to solid surfaces (e.g., resin or silica).

• Hands-on expertise in advanced molecular biology for library construction (e.g., Golden Gate cloning, Gibson Assembly, site-saturation mutagenesis, error-prone PCR).

• Protein Purification: Familiarity with affinity tag based recombinant protein purification using an FPLC.

• Familiarity with commercial/industrial protein applications and scale up from laboratory- to pilot-scale.

Benefits

• Medical

• Dental

• Vision

• 401K with company matching

• 9/80 work schedule

• Paid holiday shutdown

For more information about our company benefit offerings please visit: http://www.avinc.com/myavbenefits. We also encourage you to review our company website at http://www.avinc.com to learn more about us.

Principals only need apply. NO agencies please.