Wet Lab Protein Engineer (Selective Molecular Recognition)

Worker Type

Regular

Job Description

 

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. This role will   generate diverse protein libraries, develop robust high-throughput screening (HTS) assays, and isolate variants with selectivity and affinity for specific Rare Earth Elements.

The candidate will collaborate with the Computational Design Team. The core mission of this role is to produce and screen computationally designed proteins and use results to improve the next round of directed evolution. Additionally, this role will support the scale up of protein production and integration into pilot-scale commercial applications.

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. You will 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

• Citizenship: U.S. Citizenship is required due to government facility access requirements.

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).

• Wet-Lab Library Generation: 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. 

• Process Scale-Up Support: Familiarity with commercial/industrial protein applications and scale up from laboratory- to pilot-scale.

ITAR Requirement:

This position requires access to information that is subject to compliance with the International Traffic Arms Regulations (“ITAR”) and/or the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”). In order to comply with the requirements of the ITAR and/or the EAR, applicants will be asked to provide specific documentation to verify U.S. person status under the ITAR and the EAR.  A “U.S. person” according to their definition is a U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident (green card holder), or protected individual such as a refugee, or asylee. See 22 CFR § 120.15. Some positions will require curr