Associate Researcher

Responsibilities:

• Conduct antibody discovery campaigns from antigen design and library construction, through enrichment of candidate antibodies.
• Assist with recombinant protein production including antigen construct design, transient transfection, FPLC purification and initial QC and characterization.
• Use molecular biology techniques to assemble libraries and clone antigen and antibody expression constructs.
• Use experience with single domain, as well as conventional (scFv) formats to design and construct high-diversity synthetic antibody libraries as well as smaller, focused libraries used for optimization of therapeutic candidates.
• Assist with characterization assays to assess stability, specificity, solubility and other characteristics related to developability and manufacturability of lead molecules.
• Work closely with the Platform Development team to construct libraries suitable for screening on platform instruments.
• Contribute at the group level by using your experience in therapeutic antibody engineering to guide optimization and development of candidate molecules using thoughtful, well-researched technical approaches.
• Assist with the general operations of an antibody engineering lab including ordering, organization, stocking and maintenance of laboratory equipment.

Required Techniques:

• Well versed in display technologies (phage, yeast and ribosome display)
• Library transformation into yeast and/or bacteria
• Flow cytometry and biosensor antibody binding assays (biacore, octet)
• Standard cloning techniques (PCR, ligation, Gibson assembly)
• General cell culture techniques for suspension cells (CHO and 293) including maintenance and transient transfection.
• Protein purification using FPLC or gravity column

Preferred Techniques:

• FACS with yeast and mammalian cells
• NGS library prep
• NGS sequence analysis
• In vitro cell based assays for assessing biological activity of therapeutic antibodies.
• BLI (Octet) for measuring antibody binding kinetics and epitope binning.
• Ribosome display and/or IVTT

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in biology, chemical engineering or equivalent.
• At least 2 years antibody engineering experience.
• Ability and enthusiasm for working in a laboratory.
• Full-time, on-site in Carlsbad California.