AI Protein Design Lead

About the role

We are looking for an AI Protein Design Lead to join an early‑stage biotechnology company in London. The role sits at the crossroads of computational biology, machine learning and structural biology, reporting to the CTO and offering flexibility to work from home.

Key responsibilities

• Apply AI‑driven protein structure prediction and design tools (AlphaFold, RoseTTAFold, RFdiffusion, ProteinMPNN, ESMFold) to generate and prioritise novel therapeutic protein variants.
• Use energetic, structural and conformational principles to improve protein stability, function and design success rates.
• Design and optimise proteins and enzymes through computational modelling and molecular dynamics simulations (GROMACS, OpenMM, AMBER, NAMD).
• Translate computational designs into testable constructs for experimental validation.
• Collaborate with internal scientists and external CRO partners to iterate designs based on wet‑lab results.
• Develop and maintain protein‑design, modelling and analysis workflows and integrate structural, computational and experimental datasets.

Required profile

• PhD (or equivalent experience) in Computational Biology, Computational Chemistry, Biophysics, Machine Learning, Structural Biology or a related discipline.
• Strong background in protein structure prediction and design within biotech or pharma.
• Hands‑on experience with molecular dynamics simulations and scientific programming.
• Proven ability to work closely with wet‑lab teams or CROs to validate computational work.

Required skills

• AlphaFold, RoseTTAFold, RFdiffusion, ProteinMPNN, ESMFold
• GROMACS, OpenMM, AMBER, NAMD
• Python programming and scientific‑computing libraries