Advisor - Protein Engineering; Biotechnology Discovery Research

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life‑changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first.

We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

The Biotechnology Discovery Research group at Lilly’s Biotechnology Center in San Diego discovers medicines that address significant unmet needs by integrating biology with innovative scientific capabilities in protein engineering and computational sciences. We collaborate with colleagues in both the discovery and development organizations, including scientists in therapeutic area biology, biomolecule formulation and develop ability, ADME, Toxicology, PK/PD, Statistics, Computational Biology, clinical development, and more.

Our team is seeking a highly motivated scientist with expertise in protein engineering/biochemistry and/or structural biology to join us and to make a difference for patients and the communities we serve! The successful candidate will support and lead efforts to discover, design, and engineer protein therapeutics for desired biological function, potency, time action, stability, develop ability, and low immunogenicity. Additionally, there will be opportunities to engineer proteins and/or antibodies for targeted delivery of bioconjugates or nucleic acids to cells.

If you are a highly motivated teammate, with a passion for goal‑oriented scientific research, with a background in structural biology and/or protein engineering and possess a sound practical knowledge of molecular biology and understanding of structure/function relationships we urge you to join the Lilly Team today!

• Design, engineer, and optimize novel protein therapeutics using a combination of structure‑guided and experimental/library approaches to improve biological function, potency, time‑action, stability, and immunogenicity profiles.
• Apply knowledge of protein structure–function relationships and structure–activity relationships (SAR) to guide molecular engineering efforts.
• Lead independent research projects from concept to execution, including critically analyzing experimental results, drawing appropriate conclusions and identifying new strategies to design and optimize novel biotherapeutics.
• Troubleshoot complex challenges in protein engineering and develop innovative solutions.
• Advance core capabilities in antibody and protein engineering and contribute to the development of new platform technologies.

• Serve as a protein engineering lead on cross‑functional project teams, working closely with experts in computational biology, development, manufacturing, and translational teams.
• Present research findings at internal meetings and contribute to scientific publications and regulatory documents, as appropriate.
• Mentor junior scientists and research associates to support their technical development and career growth.
• Stay current with emerging scientific trends and maintain awareness of the competitive landscape in biologics discovery.

• Ph.D. in protein engineering, protein biochemistry, structural biology, protein biophysics, molecular biology, or related field.
• Strong foundation in protein structure and function, including demonstrated success in applying rational protein design and experimental approaches in affinity, function or stability engineering.
• Proficiency in computational tools for structure modeling and analysis (e.g., Rosetta, Schrödinger, Chimera, PyMOL, MOE, Alpha Fold).
• Hands‑on experience in molecular cloning and protein engineering.

• Postdoctoral or industry experience in protein engineering or structural biology.
• Basic proficiency in Python and/or R for data analysis, automation of workflows, or integration with bioinformatics tools.
• Proven track record of scientific productivity…