Senior Principal Scientist, Protein Design - In Silico Protein and Antibody Design

Janssen Research & Development

4d • Remote

About The Position

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at https://www.jnj.com Our expertise in Innovative Medicine is informed and inspired by patients, whose insights fuel our science-based advancements. Visionaries like you work on teams that save lives by developing the medicines of tomorrow. Join us in developing treatments, finding cures, and pioneering the path from lab to life while championing patients every step of the way. Learn more at https://www.jnj.com/innovative-medicine Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is currently seeking a Senior Principal Scientist, Protein Design, to join our In Silico Proteins team within the Therapeutics Discovery organization, with a preference for this individual to be located at one of our sites in Spring House, PA, or Cambridge, MA. Remote work options may be considered on a case-by-case basis. This role presents an exciting opportunity to spearhead our molecular design and simulation initiatives, supporting and accelerating our drug discovery and development pipeline of protein-based therapeutics while collaborating with a passionate team of scientists and engineers. Your work will be pivotal in building, evaluating, refining, and applying sophisticated computational approaches and infrastructures. Your efforts will drive the discovery of complex molecules and expedite the development of protein therapeutics across various modalities and indications.

Requirements

• PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Biochemistry, Computational Biology, Computer Science, Structural Biology, Biophysics, Material Science, or other related quantitative field with at least 5 years of experience is required.
• Advanced experience in computational protein modeling, design, structural biology, and biophysics is required
• Ability to lead projects in cross-functional teams to completion in a collaborative manner is required
• Experience in de novo protein design and sophisticated protein design techniques, such as large-scale backbone editing - for example, fusion design, loop design (inpainting), deletions, and extensions is required.
• Experience with antibody and/or nanobody modeling and design is required
• Experience with high performance computing (on-prem or cloud) is required
• Knowledge of critical wet-lab techniques used in protein engineering such as yeast display, SPR, ITC, CD-spectroscopy is required.
• Solid understanding of current machine learning architectures is required.
• Advanced proficiency in Python and related data-science packages such as Pandas and Numpy is required.
• Excellent communication, reporting and team interaction skills, self-motivated, proactive, and independent.
• Experience with powerful ML packages for protein modeling and design such as AlphaFold, RosettaFold, ESMFold, ProteinMPNN, RFDiffusion, Chroma, IgFold, DeepAb, Parapred, etc is required.
• Experience with retraining, fine-tuning, and building ML models such as LLMs to support advanced protein design and protein property prediction tools is required.
• Experience mentoring and leading junior scientists is strongly required.
• Desire for continuous learning and the ability to identify, evaluate and deploy emerging algorithms, models, and protein design workflows is required

Responsibilities

• You will work closely with colleagues across the organization to design, develop and deliver on differentiated, best in class therapeutic molecules for a range of clinical indications spanning all therapeutic areas.
• Work directly with wet-lab scientists and therapeutic areas to design and optimize protein molecules for specific functions and properties, with a focus on antibody therapeutics.
• Collaborate with team members across Therapeutics Discovery on the planning, prioritization, and timely delivery of designs to support multiple concurrent programs
• Serve as an In Silico Discovery Lead on diverse project teams
• Work with ML colleagues to develop and benchmark pioneering generative and discriminative models.
• Model sophisticated biological systems using a variety of methods and tools to advise design methodology.
• Participate in internal and external presentations, peer-reviewed manuscripts and conference proceedings

Benefits

• Employees and/or eligible dependents may be eligible to participate in the following Company sponsored employee benefit programs: medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short- and long-term disability, business accident insurance, and group legal insurance.
• Employees may be eligible to participate in the Company's consolidated retirement plan (pension) and savings plan (401(k)).
• Employees are eligible for the following time off benefits: Vacation - up to 120 hours per calendar year Sick time - up to 40 hours per calendar year Holiday pay, including Floating Holidays - up to 13 days per calendar year of Work, Personal and Family Time - up to 40 hours per calendar year

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree