Scientist I, Antibody Design

Lycia Therapeutics, Inc. is a biotechnology company leveraging its lysosomal targeting chimera (LYTAC) platform from Founder and Chemistry Nobel Laureate 2022, Carolyn Bertozzi, to discover and develop first-in-class therapeutics that degrade extracellular and membrane-bound proteins. Lycia’s next generation degraders harness the cell’s endogenous lysosomal trafficking and degradation machinery with the potential to degrade targets previously considered to be intractable, across a spectrum of indications. After raising $105 million in capital in 2021, Lycia is advancing an internal pipeline of novel degraders and has entered a strategic collaboration with Eli Lilly to address key unmet medical needs. In May 2024, Lycia Therapeutics completed a $106.6 million series C financing to advance its pipeline of LYTAC extracellular protein degraders to the clinic. Lycia is headquartered in South San Francisco. 

Visit https://lyciatx.com/ for more information.

The Role:

The Expression team at Lycia Therapeutics is looking for a Scientist with biologics expertise in protein and antibody engineering for the preclinical discovery and development of therapeutic candidates. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Conceive, design, and execute on the engineering of innovative, bispecific and multispecific antibodies with improved function, selectivity, and developability.
• Execute on weekly protein and antibody expressions to support the discovery and development efforts for all ongoing research programs.
• Contribute to assessing the protein structure and function of our antibody-based therapeutics by evaluating the underlying designs and engineering.
• Work closely with other internal and external groups to advance our company goals.
• Present your findings and ideas to an interdisciplinary team with a wide range of technical backgrounds.
• Assist in evaluating new technologies to stay at the cutting edge of biologics discovery, production, and characterization.

Requirements:

• PhD (or equivalent industry experience) in protein engineering, plus 0 to 5 years experience in biotech / pharma.
• PhD candidates with project leadership experience with an understanding of biologics drug discovery and development processes are highly preferred and will be prioritized.
• Experience with therapeutic antibody formatting, Fc engineering, or with protein designing is absolutely required.
• Understanding various antibody formats and scaffolds including (but not limited to) fusion proteins, bispecific antibodies, and single-domain antibodies (HCAb and vHH) is required.
• Understanding of biologics workflows for the discovery and development of protein therapeutics — including antibody discovery, protein expression/purification, protein characterization and developability assessment — is required.
• Experience in molecular biology and antibody engineering (including construct design and optimizing expression) for various bispecific antibody formats is required.
• Experience in cloning (including but not limited to Gibson assembly) is required; experience with plasmid constructions using SnapGene software is crucial.
• Extensive experience in mammalian cell culture (routinely transfecting at 200 mL to 2 L scale) and with protein expression systems (Expi293 and ExpiCHO) is absolutely required.
• Experience in engineering antibodies for improved properties (affinity, solubility, and other attributes related to developability) is useful.
• Experience using structural and sequence analysis software to guide the design of proteins and the construction of expression plasmids including Pymol, Discovery Studio, IgBlast, abYsis, and Geneious is useful.
• Strong motivation, attention to detail, and the ability to think independently and to integrate into a high-achieving team environment are essential.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and effective presentation of complex scientific data to cross-functional and senior management.
• Track record of strong problem solving and organizational skills.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status