AI Biologist - Peptide Discovery

Latch builds rigorous scientific benchmarks for AI agents across biology, working with frontier labs and pharma to measure whether agents can handle real biological workflows. The AI Biologist joins the Peptide Discovery team as the scientific authority on ground truth, testing whether agents can reason like an expert peptide discovery scientist across linear, macrocyclic, and constrained peptides against protein targets, including protein–protein interactions, from target tractability to candidate nomination.

Responsibilities

Define expert reasoning for peptide discovery questions and write gold-standard answers with defensible rationale; Design realistic scenarios across the discovery arc: target tractability, hit generation, hit confirmation and kinetics, binding-site mapping, functional confirmation, and lead optimization; Curate datasets from real programs, including display-selection read counts, SPR/BLI sensorgrams, fluorescence-polarization titrations, affinity-selection MS, HDX-MS, crosslinking-MS, NMR chemical-shift perturbation, dose-response, and permeability and stability data; Build analysis pipelines in Python, from enrichment analysis to kinetic and dose-response fitting, that produce verifiable ground truth; Partner with software engineers to turn scientific judgment into new workflows; Test whether agents distinguish true signal from artifact and adjudicate conflicting evidence; Test whether agents weigh tradeoffs between binding versus function and potency versus developability; Interrogate agent reasoning step by step, pinpoint errors, and score agent confidence

Requirements

PhD in peptide chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology, medicinal chemistry, or a related field; Senior, hands-on peptide discovery experience with personally analyzed real program data; Direct experience with at least one of: display selection (phage, mRNA, ribosome, RaPID, or DNA-encoded libraries), SPR/BLI or FP binding kinetics, binding-site mapping by structural MS or NMR, or peptide developability (PAMPA/Caco-2 permeability, proteolytic and serum stability); Deep expertise in at least one area (display and selection, biophysics, structural mapping, or peptide medicinal chemistry) and working fluency across the others; Strong command of experimental design, quantitative data analysis in Python or R, and statistics; AI-ready from day one: daily use of Claude, Cursor, or similar agents, with the judgment to spot where model reasoning is technically correct but scientifically unsound; Confidence to overrule an AI agent when the evidence demands it, and openness to update when shown wrong; Ability to calibrate confidence and communicate uncertainty rather than defaulting to binary calls

Nice to have

Peptide format and chemistry experience, such as macrocyclization, hydrocarbon stapling, N-methylation, D- and non-canonical residues, or HELM encoding; Target tractability or de novo design experience, such as PPI hotspot analysis, human-genetic evidence for therapeutic direction, or computational design with Rosetta or RFdiffusion

Benefits

Health, dental, vision coverage: 100% for employee, 50% for dependents (US full-time W-2); 401(k) without match; PTO: 12 days to start, increasing with promotion; Guaranteed base salary paid every paycheck (US full-time W-2); First 4 weeks (ramp) paid at full OTE; Full OTE paid when quota cannot fairly apply; Monthly advance of 60% of OTE, never clawed back (outside the US contractors); Catered lunch and dinner and unlimited snacks at the Mission Bay office; Company outings most months and team off-sites; Visa sponsorship: H-1B (new and transfers), O-1, TN, and support for STEM OPT