Senior Biologist - Protein Engineering

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve.

This is hard, urgent, selfless work, but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.

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.

The Biotechnology Discovery Research (BioTDR) division in San Diego is responsible for generating, characterizing, and optimizing biotherapeutics from discovery to candidate selection. We support cross-disciplinary efforts to engineer innovative biotherapeutics that treat metabolic, autoimmune, oncologic, and neurologic diseases. Join our team of scientists working to improve the lives of patients around the world.

This is an opportunity for a self-motivated researcher to join the Protein Engineering group at the Lilly Biotechnology Center in San Diego. We are seeking an associate-level scientist with experience in molecular biology, biochemistry, and protein engineering. The successful candidate will characterize and optimize antibodies, therapeutic proteins, and alternative scaffolds, with a primary focus on antibody discovery and engineering. The ideal candidate is a dedicated teammate with outstanding technical skills who can work collaboratively with the antibody discovery, protein engineering, protein production, protein characterization, and automation groups in San Diego and Indianapolis.

As they build expertise, there is an opportunity to take ownership of a project workstream with increasing autonomy.

• Think creatively and assist in designing and performing experiments to identify and validate the next generation of large molecule therapeutics
• Contribute to building and improving next-generation technology platforms for future therapeutics
• Contribute to process improvement of molecular biology, screening protocols and molecule characterization
• Work collaboratively and communicate with project teams to achieve critical research objectives and timelines
• Maintain timely, detailed, and well-organized records, including electronic notebooks, laboratory information management systems, presentations, and reports

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Protein Engineering, Biotechnology, Cell Biology, or a related STEM field with a minimum of 3 years of relevant laboratory experience
• Experience in protein engineering
• Qualified applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Lilly will not provide support for or sponsor work authorization or visas for this role, including but not limited to F-1 CPT, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, J-1, H-1B, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, or L-1.

• Demonstrated hands-on experience with molecular biology and cloning techniques (PCR, Gibson assembly, restriction digest/ligation, site-directed mutagenesis, bacterial transformation)
• Experience in antibody engineering and optimization approaches as well as in protein biochemistry
• Proficient in ELISA and binding assay techniques; experience with BLI (Octet) or SPR (Biacore) is desirable
• Knowledge of protein structure and structure-activity relationships
• Confortable using AI tools and agile learning new software
• Knowledge/experience in cell culture and cell-based functional assays
• Experience working with automation platforms
• Familiarity with sequence analysis tools and data…