Senior Scientist, Drug Discovery Biochemistry & BiophysicsAbout the RoleWe're seeking a driven and highly skilled Senior Scientist to build and execute our protein biochemistry, biophysics, and drug discovery assay capabilities. In this role, you will design, produce, and characterize high-quality recombinant proteins, develop robust biochemical and biophysical assays, and build focused cellular assay cascades that connect target engagement and mechanism to cellular pharmacology. Your work will generate decision-quality data on potency, selectivity, mechanism, kinetics, reversibility, compound artifacts, and molecular and cellular biology.
You'll partner closely with the rest of our biology team along with medicinal chemistry to turn screening hits into mechanistically understood and optimizable chemical matter. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys working at the interface of protein science, biophysics, cell-based pharmacology, and small molecule drug discovery.
If you're someone who loves making difficult assays work, understanding how compounds engage their targets to influence biology, and using rigorous quantitative data to guide drug discovery decisions, we want to hear from you.
You willProtein Production & Characterization- Design, express, purify, and characterize recombinant proteins to support biochemical, biophysical, target engagement, and structural studies.
- Develop construct, tag, truncation, mutation, and purification strategies, and apply analytical methods (SEC, SDS-PAGE, activity, LC-MS, DLS, thermal shift etc.) to assess protein purity, identity, oligomeric state, stability, and assay suitability.
Biochemical, Biophysical & SAR-Enabling Assays- Develop, validate, and run biochemical and biophysical assays (FR, TR-FRET, AlphaScreen/AlphaLISA, DSF, enzymatic, SPR, BLI) to support hit validation, SAR, selectivity, mechanism of action, and lead optimization.
- Generate quantitative data on affinity, potency, kinetics, residence time, reversibility, competition, allostery, selectivity, and design orthogonal assays.
- Partner with medicinal chemistry to interpret SAR, prioritize compounds, and shape assay strategy.
Focused Cellular Mechanism & Target Engagement Assays- Build focused cell-based assays that connect biochemical /biophysical target engagement to cellular pharmacology, covering target engagement, pathway modulation, biomarker response, potency, selectivity and counterscreens.
- Develop fit-for-purpose readouts (e.g. high content cell imaging, qPCR, reporter, viability) for SAR and mechanism.
You're a good fit if you have- PhD in biochemistry, biophysics, chemical biology, structural biology, pharmacology, cell biology, or a closely related field.
- 3-5 years of industry experience in small molecule drug discovery, developing biochemical, biophysical, and/or cellular assays
- Hands-on experience in recombinant protein expression, purification, and analytical characterization, independently generating high-quality reagents for quantitative assays.
- A strong grasp of assay development principles, (robustness, reproducibility, dynamic range, signal-to-background, Z', CV etc.).
Bonus Points For- Experience with structural biology methods such as NMR, X-ray crystallography, or cryo-EM.
- Familiarity with aging biology, senescence, mitochondrial function, proteostasis, inflammatory signaling, metabolic pathways, or other age-related disease biology.
- Experience leveraging AI and coding agents in the context of drug discovery, computational chemistry, and leveraging large-scale biological datasets to augment drug discovery.
Location & Logistics- Visa sponsorship available where applicable. We'll work with you to make it happen.
- This role will be located at Redwood LIFE in Redwood City, CA, a modern and stunning life sciences complex in the Bay Area.
- Start date: immediate.
Compensation & benefitsWe offer a highly competitive salary, substantial equity, and comprehensive benefits, including medical and dental coverage, company-provided lunch, 401k match, and others.
