Principal Scientist, Biologics Optimization (Biologics)

Location: Spring House, Pennsylvania, United States, with periodic travel to the Cambridge, Massachusetts site.

Company

Johnson & Johnson MedTech develops healthcare, Innovative Medicine, and medical technology solutions focused on preventing, treating, and curing complex diseases.

What you will do

• Provide scientific leadership for automation-enabled biologics discovery and optimization workflows.
• Partner with automation teams to implement and continuously improve yeast display, NGS, and related high-throughput technologies.
• Integrate experimental data with computational and AI/ML approaches to guide biologics portfolio decisions.
• Analyze sequence-function, structure-function, and mechanism-function relationships to generate actionable scientific insight.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and automation solutions that improve throughput, reproducibility, and discovery timelines.
• Present scientific findings and prepare patents, manuscripts, protocols, SOPs, and technical reports.

Requirements

• Master’s degree or higher in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Biotechnology, Biomedical Engineering, Structural Biology, or a related field; a PhD is highly preferred.
• At least 3 years of relevant industry experience in biologics discovery, protein engineering, computational biology, automation engineering, or therapeutic optimization.
• Scientific leadership experience in biologics optimization, antibody engineering, protein engineering, and therapeutic molecule optimization.
• Experience leading automation builds, integrating large-scale experimental datasets, and collaborating with computational and AI/ML teams.
• Strong understanding of antibody structure-function relationships, affinity maturation, specificity engineering, sequence liabilities, and developability.
• Proficiency in Python and AI/ML-enabled protein sequence and structure modeling tools such as Schrödinger, MOE, PyMOL, Chimera, or AlphaFold-based workflows.

Nice to have

• For candidates with a Master’s degree, 6 years of industry experience; for candidates with a PhD, 3 years of industry experience.
• Experience with antibody characterization methods including SPR, ELISA, flow cytometry, thermal stability, aggregation, and other developability metrics.
• Experience with cell-based functional assays in oncology or immunology and high-throughput binding or screening platforms.
• Knowledge of mammalian protein expression, recombinant protein production, and NGS technologies such as Illumina or PacBio.
• Experience establishing scientific capabilities, influencing strategy, and mentoring scientists in a matrixed research environment.

Culture & Benefits

• Work in a cross-functional environment with Therapeutic Area scientists, protein engineers, computational scientists, AI/ML experts, and automation teams.
• Contribute to an inclusive workplace that respects diversity and individual dignity.
• Participate in scientific initiatives focused on improving reproducibility, throughput, and portfolio-wide optimization outcomes.