AI Structural Biologist — Remote/Hybrid Expert

Latch Bio, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); Vor Ort; USD 120.000 - 180.000; Vollzeit

Benefits dieser Stelle

Catered lunch and dinner daily

Waterfront office in Mission Bay

Monthly parking

Zusammenfassung

Latch Bio, Inc. seeks an AI Biologist on the Structural Biology team to set the standard for how agents interpret macromolecular structure. You will decide when data supports a claim and build benchmarks across viral and bacterial proteins, toxins, RNA elements, and host–pathogen complexes with software teams.

You will guide tasks from data collection to validation, design realistic scenarios, and ensure agent outputs meet expert criteria. PhD + hands-on modeling required.

Qualifikationen

• PhD in structural biology, biophysics, biochemistry, or related field.
• Hands-on structural experience validating models and maps.
• Deep expertise in at least one area (X-ray crystallography, cryo-EM, NMR/solution methods, or computational structural biology).
• Coding for structural data: compute contacts, superpositions, symmetry mates, map values and geometry from files without a GUI.
• AI-ready from day one: daily use of Claude, Cursor, or similar agents, with judgment to spot when reasoning is scientifically unsound.
• Ability to calibrate confidence and communicate uncertainty rather than defaulting to binary calls.

Aufgaben

• Define expert reasoning for structural questions and write gold-standard answers with the rationale an experienced crystallographer, cryo-EM scientist or biophysicist would defend.
• Design realistic scenarios across the structural workflow: data collection and processing, map interpretation, model building, validation, assembly and state assignment, comparison, functional interpretation, protein–protein interaction analysis, molecular dynamics simulation, and metadynamics.
• Curate datasets across modalities: X-ray structure factors and maps, cryo-EM maps and half-maps, atomic models, AlphaFold predictions with confidence metrics, molecular dynamics and metadynamics simulations and trajectories, NMR shifts and ensembles, SAXS curves, HDX-MS, cross-linking, and SHAPE/DMS reactivity.
• Build analysis pipelines in Python (gemmi, Biopython/biotite, numpy) that compute verifiable ground truth directly from the files the agent receives.
• Partner with software engineers to turn your judgment into new workflows.
• Test whether agents distinguish real structure from artifact or over-interpretation: unsupported ligands, register shifts, mirrored maps, crystal contacts read as interfaces, misdocked domains, and B-factors or occupancies treated as evidence.
• Adjudicate ambiguous cases: decide what the map or measurement supports, where reasonable experts would disagree, and which additional data would settle the call.
• Test whether agents choose the right representation and comparison for the question: biological assembly vs asymmetric unit, reference state, and which domain to superpose on.
• Interrogate agent reasoning step by step, and challenge conclusions that sound right but would not survive peer review or a validation report.
• Pinpoint where agents go wrong: why a step fails, what an expert would do instead, and what evidence would change the call.
• Score agent confidence, rewarding explicit uncertainty over overconfident calls on ambiguous structures.

Kenntnisse

PhD in structural biology

Hands-on structural modeling

X-ray/cryo-EM/NMR expertise

Coding for structural data

AI-ready / analytical

Evidence-based reasoning

Uncertainty communication

Ausbildung

PhD in structural biology

Tools

gemmi

Biopython/biotite

numpy

Jobbeschreibung

Latch Bio, Inc. seeks an AI Biologist on the Structural Biology team to set the standard for how agents interpret macromolecular structure. You will decide when data supports a claim and build benchmarks across viral and bacterial proteins, toxins, RNA elements, and host–pathogen complexes with software teams.

You will guide tasks from data collection to validation, design realistic scenarios, and ensure agent outputs meet expert criteria. PhD + hands-on modeling required.