Senior Scientist, Protein Engineering

Avalon Bio Ventures is a biotech venture capital firm that builds on Avalon’s 40-year success in pursuing disruptive ideas to improve life. From its established offices and labs on the Torrey Pines Mesa, in La Jolla, California, Avalon Bio Ventures leverages its Accelerator, which provides operational infrastructure and support, and the team’s extensive experience to identify promising science, build agile companies, and advance breakthrough therapeutics.

We are seeking a Senior Scientist (Ph.D. or equivalent, with more than 5 years of post-doctoral industrial experience) to join our growing team as a key player in the development of our therapeutic protein platform and the culture of our scientific team. In this role, you will lead the design and engineering of therapeutic proteins from concept through to well-characterized leads, working closely with colleagues in biology, analytics, and CMC.

• Design, execute and interpret antibody selection and engineering campaigns to optimize affinity, specificity, stability, expression and develop ability of therapeutic proteins.
• Plan and run systematic expression, purification and characterization workflows, ensuring robust, reproducible results and high-quality data packages for project decisions.
• Develop and refine assays (biochemical and/or cell-based) in partnership with biology colleagues to assess function, mechanism and liabilities of engineered proteins.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams (biology, structural, CMC) to integrate data, prioritize leads, and troubleshoot programs in a transparent, evidence-driven manner.
• Document experimental plans, methods and results rigorously in ELNs and internal reports; present findings clearly to project and leadership teams.
• Contribute to platform and process improvements in protein design, expression, and screening to increase throughput and data quality.
• Mentor and provide day-to-day technical guidance to junior scientists, modeling collaborative behavior and systematic problem-solving.

• Ph.D. (or equivalent) in protein biochemistry, molecular biology, immunology, or a closely related field, with more than 5 years of post-doctoral industrial experience.
• Background in multiple expression systems (prokaryotic and eukaryotic), with experience of high-throughput workflows and data management.
• Experience with in vitro display technologies (phage, DNA, RNA, etc.).
• Hands-on experience with modern purification techniques and tools.
• Experience with develop ability assays (Tm, Tagg, DLS, DFS, specificity, solubility, stability, etc.).
• Experience with PPI assays (KD via SPR, BLI, GCI, ITC; or homogeneous assays such as HTRF, FRET/BRET, Alpha Screen, DELFIA, etc.).

• Experience with the design, expression, and analysis of multi-specific or multi-valent molecules.

• Collaborative and team-oriented: shares information openly, seeks input from colleagues, and is comfortable co-owning data, decisions and publications.
• Science-focused: grounded and focused on the quality and impact of the science rather than personal recognition; gives credit generously.
• Systematic and methodical: plans experiments thoughtfully, uses appropriate controls, and improves processes rather than relying on ad hoc fixes.
• Organized and conscientious: manages multiple experiments in parallel, meets commitments reliably, and maintains excellent records.
• Open to feedback: invites critique of their designs and data, adjusts their approach when the evidence points elsewhere, and helps create a psychologically safe lab environment.

In addition to a competitive compensation package with stock options, the company also offers a comprehensive benefits…