Senior Scientist, Biochemistry

The Senior Scientist, Biochemistry will lead development and implementation of high-throughput biochemical assays to discover and characterize aminopeptidases with properties relevant to next-generation protein sequencing. The role will focus on screening diverse aminopeptidase candidates for activity, selectivity, kinetics, robustness, and performance across a broad range of substrates. The successful candidate will combine strong expertise in enzymology, protein biochemistry, assay development, and quantitative data analysis to advance enzyme reagents. 

Core Responsibilities 

• Develop workflows and progression criteria for primary screening, hit confirmation, characterization, ranking, and advancement of enzyme candidates. 

• Integrate screening assays into enzyme-evolution pipelines and coordinate the advancement of promising candidates into downstream development and sequencing-assay evaluation. 

• Develop clear, reusable reporting tools to communicate screening results, candidate recommendations, and pipeline status. 

• Purify and characterize proteins to support assay development and candidate evaluation.  

• Use laboratory automation and data-analysis tools to increase screening throughput, consistency, and traceability. 

• Contribute to a culture of scientific rigor, execution, continuous learning, and knowledge sharing. 

• Document and transfer selected assays to downstream QC teams to support the release of production enzymes. 

Required Qualifications 

• M.S. with 7+ years or Ph.D. with 3+ years of relevant academic or industry experience in protein biochemistry, enzymology, biophysics, biotechnology, chemical biology, or a related field. 

• Demonstrated ability to independently and creatively design, optimize, and troubleshoot biochemical assays for challenging enzymology applications. 

• Strong foundation in enzyme kinetics, protein-substrate interactions, assay controls, and quantitative interpretation of biochemical data. 

• Experience developing enzyme-activity assays using fluorescence, absorbance, polarization, chromatography, or related readouts. 

• Ability to analyze large experimental datasets and use computational or statistical tools to support assay optimization and candidate selection. 

• Ability to learn, set up, and operate complex instrumentation and laboratory automation. 

• Ability to plan and execute multiple scientific workstreams while maintaining high standards for experimental design, documentation, and data quality. 

• Excellent organizational, analytical, communication, collaboration, and presentation skills. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience developing and scaling high-throughput enzyme-screening workflows, including assay miniaturization and automation. 

• Expertise in aminopeptidases, proteases, exopeptidases, or other proteolytic enzymes. 

• Experience evaluating enzyme activity across diverse peptide substrates and sequence contexts. 

• Experience with rapid-kinetics methods and instrumentation, including stopped-flow or quench-flow systems. 

• Hands-on experience with protein expression, purification, and characterization using chromatography systems such as AKTA and HPLC. 

• Experience with fluorescence polarization, fluorimeters such as Fluoromax, LC-MS, or other orthogonal methods for enzyme characterization.