The Opportunity
Visterra is seeking a creative and driven Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join our Protein Design team. This is an exciting, hands-on opportunity to shape early-stage drug discovery programs across a broad portfolio, working with a team that gives you the resources and scale to put your ideas to the test. In this role, you will bring cutting-edge protein design approaches directly into our pipeline, building and applying machine learning methods for structure prediction, de novo protein and antibody design, and computational optimization to tackle real therapeutic challenges.
Reporting to the Associate Director, Research, the ideal candidate is highly motivated, eager to learn, intellectually curious, and deeply collaborative, with the drive to thrive in a fast-paced, interdisciplinary environment. It is an excellent opportunity to join a team with deep experience in protein design and gain hands-on experience working across both antibody and non-antibody based biotherapeutics.
This is a full-time position located at Visterra's offices in Waltham, MA. The expected length of the fellowship is 24 months.
Responsibilities
- Champion the integration of the latest machine learning methods and emerging technologies into our protein design workflows.
- Stay ahead of the field. Read broadly, evaluate new tools critically, and bring the best ones in-house.
- Partner with computational and experimental scientists inside and outside Visterra to drive structure- and property-guided design of therapeutic proteins and antibodies.
- Dig into scientific results, troubleshoot methods, and invent creative solutions to complex challenges.
- Translate complex data analyses into clear, compelling findings and communicate them confidently to colleagues and leadership.
- Bring fresh ideas to team meetings and actively push programs forward throughout the drug discovery process.
- Potential opportunities to publish novel methods and research findings at conferences and in scientific journals.
Requirements
- A Ph.D. or equivalent in computational biology, structural biology, biochemistry, or a related discipline with significant and extensive experience in protein design.
- Strong knowledge of the experimental and computational aspects of protein structure/function and engineering.
- Demonstrated track record of employing or developing protein design methods.
- Proficient in tools/algorithms used for computational modeling, design and analysis of proteins (e.g., PyRosetta, AlphaFold, ESMFold, and related structure predictors, RFdiffusion, ProteinMPNN, BindCraft, and related protein design tools, PyMOL, etc.).
- Hands-on experience with processing and analysis of large and complex datasets.
- Highly proficient with Python and Python libraries for data analysis, machine learning and deep learning frameworks.
- Experience working in a Linux environment, including bash scripting.
- Comfortable working in high-performance computing (e.g., SLURM) and/or cloud environments.
- Ability to work in multi-disciplinary teams, displaying excellent interpersonal skills.
- Ability to help direct experimental evaluation of computational methods and/or designs, and to use experimental data to validate and refine in silico methods.
Travel: Possible travel to local and national conferences.
Job Type: Full time, temporary with fixed term.
Salary range: $80,000 - $120,000
