Advisor - Biochemist, Pandemic Preparedness

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, 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.

Lilly’s Biotechnology Discovery Research (BioTDR) organization has a track record for delivering novel biotherapeutic medicines to advance into clinical research in key areas of unmet medical need across a variety of therapeutic areas. We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Molecular and Cellular Biochemist to join our research team. This role is part of a dedicated pandemic preparedness team within BioTDR, working in close partnership with Lilly's Infectious Disease organization and external partners to create and develop capabilities to enable future pandemic preparedness.

The successful candidate will design and produce the antigen constructs and structural reagents that enable both de novo AI-based antibody design and patient-derived antibody discovery workflows — providing the foundational substrate for a rapid outbreak response capability. Initial focus will be on Ebola virus glycoprotein, with subsequent expansion across a prioritized panel of high-consequence pathogens. The position is located at the Lilly Bio Technology Center in San Diego, CA.

Design and implementation of capabilities to enable antibody discovery and engineering targeting infectious agents, including the utilization of protein engineering to enable the development of reagents and biochemical assays to support antiviral antibody discovery, and will include the following activities:
Design and production of recombinant viral antigen constructs, including modified forms such as prefusion-stabilized, multimeric fusions, and cellular receptor-based reagents that are optimized for antibody discovery screening and structural biology Build and maintain a "pathogen readiness package" for each prioritized high-consequence pathogen including documented expression constructs, validated binding reagents, and characterized neutralizing epitopes — updated as new data emerges Enable and participate in the design, engineering, and characterization of multi‑specific virus targeting antibodies Embrace and celebrate diversity by using a relevant and unique background and set of experiences to provide new ideas to deliver innovative solutions drugging novel targets.

• Ph.D. in biochemistry, structural biology, virology, or related field plus a minimum of 2 years post‑graduate experience (post‑doctoral or industry) in a virology‑related field such as antiviral discovery
• Strong core proficiency in all…