Senior Scientist, Protein Design Full-time

Senior Scientist, Protein Design

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is currently seeking a Senior 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.

Key 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. Qualified candidates will have a strong background in computational biology and a proven track record of seeing designs through experimental testing.

• 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 guide development, benchmarking, and application of 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

Qualifications

Education:

• PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Biochemistry, Computational Biology, Computer Science, Structural Biology, Biophysics, Material Science, or other related quantitative field required.

Experience and Skills:

• 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 is preferred.
• 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 preferred.
• 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 is required. Ideal candidate is self-motivated, proactive, and independent.
• Experience using Schrodinger, Discovery Studio, MOE, GROMACS, NAMD or other molecular dynamics simulation software is preferred
• Experience with powerful ML and biophysics packages for protein modeling and design such as AlphaFold, Boltz2, ESMFold, ImmuneBuilder, ProteinMPNN, RFDiffusion, RFAntibody, Boltzgen, Germinal, Chai-2, Chroma, Rosetta, 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 preferred.
• Experience mentoring and leading junior scientists is strongly preferred.
• Desire for continuous learning and the ability to identify, evaluate and deploy emerging algorithms, models, and protein design workflows is required

Other:

The preference is for this individual to be located at one of our sites in either Spring House, PA, or Cambridge, MA. Remote work options within the US may be considered on a case-by-case basis and if approved by the company. Travel up to 10% may be required.

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal, state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Johnson & Johnson is committed to providing an interview process that is inclusive of our applicants' needs. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request an accommodation, external applicants please contact us via https://www.jnj.com/contact-us/careers, internal employees contact AskGS to be directed to your accommodation resource.

The anticipated base pay range for this position is $109,000 to $174,800. The Company maintains highly competitive, performance-based compensation programs. Under current guidelines, this position is eligible for an annual performance bonus in accordance with the terms of the applicable plan. The annual performance bonus is a cash bonus intended to provide an incentive to achieve annual targeted results by rewarding for individual and the corporation's performance over a calendar/performance year. Bonuses are awarded at the Company's discretion on an individual basis. 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 yearSick time – up to 40 hours per calendar yearHoliday pay, including Floating Holidays – up to 13 days per calendar year of Work, Personal and Family Time – up to 40 hours per calendar yearAdditional information can be found through the link below. https://www.careers.jnj.com/employee-benefits

The compensation and benefits information set forth in this posting applies to candidates hired in the United States. Candidates hired outside the United States will be eligible for compensation and benefits in accordance with their local market.

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Required Skills:

Preferred Skills:

Advanced Analytics, Business Intelligence (BI), Coaching, Collaborating, Critical Thinking, Data Analysis, Database Management, Data Privacy Standards, Data Reporting, Data Savvy, Data Science, Data Visualization, Econometric Models, Process Improvements, Technical Credibility, Technologically Savvy, Workflow Analysis