Protein Design Intern (AI)

TL;DR

Protein Design Intern (AI/Computational Biology): Designing binders and benchmarking open-source protein design methods for an automated lab infrastructure with an accent on computational tooling and experimental validation. Focus on building pipelines for structure prediction, filtering, and ranking to triage candidates for synthesis.

Location: Remote or on-site in Lausanne (preferred for lab access)

Company

hirify.global is building an automated lab that allows AI agents to run biology experiments.

What you will do

• Benchmark open-source protein design methods against real experimental data from the wet lab.
• Design binders for internal R&D campaigns and track performance across success rate and kinetics.
• Build computational tooling for structure prediction, filtering, and ranking to triage design pools.
• Support technical aspects of open competitions and hackathons, including drafting briefs and judging.
• Contribute open data and method comparisons to Proteinbase.

Requirements

• Currently enrolled in a Master's, PhD, or final-year undergraduate program in computational biology, ML, biochemistry, or related fields.
• Hands-on experience with at least one modern open-source protein design method.
• Strong Python and PyTorch skills, including comfort with biology data formats.
• Working understanding of binding kinetics and developability.

Nice to have

• Prior open-source contributions to protein design repositories.
• Strong showing in public design competitions.
• Published blog posts or scientific papers.

Culture & Benefits

• Paid internship position.
• Duration of 3-6 months.
• Opportunity for full design-build-test-learn exposure when based in Lausanne.