Key Responsibilities
• Design and construct combinatorial, site-saturation, and rationally designed variant libraries.
• Develop and execute high-throughput selection and screening strategies, including growth-coupled selections and FACS-based screens.
• Express, purify, and biophysically characterize engineered proteins, including binding, stability, and specificity measurements.
• Integrate validated variants into cellular and in vivo systems and confirm function in a biological context.
• Generate high-throughput sequencing datasets from selection campaigns and work with computational colleagues to implement and test their designs.
• Contribute protein biochemistry expertise across the lab’s broader research program as needed.
• Present findings at internal meetings and scientific conferences and prepare manuscripts for high-impact journals.
• Mentor junior researchers and contribute to a collaborative lab environment.
Qualifications
• PhD in Biochemistry, Protein Engineering, Molecular Biology, Chemical Biology, or a related field.
• Strong hands-on experience in protein engineering, including library construction, directed evolution or high-throughput selection, and protein expression and purification.
• Proficiency in molecular biology techniques, including cloning and synthetic construct design, PCR-based mutagenesis, and next-generation sequencing library preparation.
• Experience with biophysical characterization methods for protein-ligand and protein-protein interactions.
• Experience with deep mutational scanning or display technologies (phage, yeast, or bacterial surface display) is desirable.
• Experience with membrane protein expression, structural biology, or bacterial genome engineering is a plus.
• Ability to work independently and within a collaborative team; strong communication and writing skills.
Application: Interested candidates should send their CV, a cover letter outlining their research experience, interest in this position and contact information for three references to Dr. Nalinikanth Kotagiri at NKotagiri@som.umaryland.edu
Desired start date: Immediately
