Senior Scientist, Antibody Discovery & Engineering

BioSpace; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 131,000 - 209,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive healthcare

Family planning benefits

Generous paid time off

Discretionary bonus / equity

Job summary

Moderna is seeking a Senior Scientist to lead hands-on antibody discovery and protein engineering within Therapeutics Research. The role focuses on yeast display, library design, and lead optimization across oncology and autoimmune programs.

You will work with design, computational biology, structural biology, and antigen teams to translate in silico ideas into experimentally testable molecules, driving iterative design-build-test-learn cycles in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Qualifications

• PhD in protein engineering, molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology, cancer biology, or a related discipline, with 2+ years post-PhD industry experience in antibody discovery or biologics discovery.
• Strong hands-on experience with yeast surface display for antibody or protein engineering, including library design/construction, FACS-based screening or selection, affinity maturation, and/or specificity optimization.
• Strong technical foundation in antibody/protein structure-function relationships and the application of engineering approaches to improve binding, specificity, stability, expression, developability, or molecular format.
• Demonstrated experience collaborating with computational protein design, bioinformatics, structural biology, or related teams to translate computational hypotheses into experimental constructs.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to integrated antibody discovery and engineering campaigns, with primary responsibility for experimental protein and antibody engineering workstreams from design and library strategy through selection, characterization, optimization, and lead identification.
• Design, build, and execute yeast surface display workflows for antibody discovery and engineering, including library design and construction, FACS-based selections, affinity maturation, specificity and cross-reactivity optimization, and multi-parameter lead enrichment.
• Partner with computational protein design, bioinformatics, structural biology, and antigen design teams to translate designs into experimentally testable constructs and to use results to inform design cycles.
• Apply molecular biology and protein engineering approaches including cloning, mutagenesis, sequence analysis, construct design, expression, and purification across IgG, Fab, scFv, VHH, bispecific formats.
• Characterize engineered candidates using biochemical, biophysical, display-based, and functional assays to assess binding, affinity, specificity, stability, developability, and potency.

Skills

Yeast display engineering

Molecular biology

Antibody engineering

Library design

Protein expression/purification

NGS data analysis

Education

PhD in protein engineering / related field

Tools

FACS

Biacore

Carterra

Job description

Moderna is seeking a Senior Scientist to lead hands-on antibody discovery and protein engineering within Therapeutics Research. The role focuses on yeast display, library design, and lead optimization across oncology and autoimmune programs.

You will work with design, computational biology, structural biology, and antigen teams to translate in silico ideas into experimentally testable molecules, driving iterative design-build-test-learn cycles in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.