Wet Lab Protein Engineer (Selective Molecular Recognition)

AeroVironment•Bath Township, OH

5d•Onsite

About The Position

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.

Requirements

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).
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.
High-throughput Recombinant protein production in E. Coli and/or possible yeast surface display
U.S. Citizenship is required due to government facility access requirements.

Nice To Haves

Experience with (or willingness to learn) biophysical characterization techniques (ITC, SPR, Fluorescence) to help interpret experimental data.
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).
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).
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.
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 current U.S. Citizenship due to contract requirements.

Responsibilities

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.
Generate protein/peptide libraries using advanced molecular biology techniques
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.
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.
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.