Scientist - Structural Informatics Infrastructure
About Astera
Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward an abundant future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to dramatically accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive scientific progress.
Unlike traditional non-profit research organizations, projects supported by Astera operate like high-velocity startups, allowing us to focus on ambitious goals, match structure to problem, and attract strong technical talent and leadership. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming here.
Position Summary:
The diffUSE Project is seeking a Scientist to join a multidisciplinary team to help build the infrastructure needed to host and distribute dynamic structural biology data. The diffUSE Project is an ambitious initiative designed to advance our understanding of protein dynamics by building the experimental methods, computational models, and global infrastructure needed to capture molecular motion at scale. Our goal is to establish dynamic structural biology as a foundational pillar of modern science, as transformative and indispensable as static structures have been.
This role will lead the development of standards and platforms that enable the community to deposit, validate, search, and leverage dynamic structural information at scale. The job will involve helping to architect the foundational infrastructure, including metrics and encoding, to make dynamic structural biology data as accessible, trustworthy, and impactful as the Protein Data Bank has been for static structures. You will work at the intersection of structural biology, data science, and community standards development to build an ensemble-aware, living database that evolves with algorithmic advances while maintaining scientific rigor and reproducibility.
This is a full-time position within the diffUSE Project, in-person at Radial, a division of the Astera Institute.
Key Responsibilities:
Help lead the conceptual design of an ensemble-aware database architecture that balances flexibility, scalability, and scientific integrity
Identify and prioritize technical challenges, from data representation to validation frameworks to query interfaces
Direct the design and implementation of infrastructure that enables continuous model improvement as algorithms advance, while preserving provenance, trust, and reproducibility
Oversee development of ensemble-aware validation frameworks that assess fit-to-data, physical realism, and uncertainty across diverse structural representations
Guide the creation of data deposition, search, and retrieval tools that allow users to interrogate and interpret structural heterogeneity at scale
Help coordinate with stakeholders to ensure interoperability and adoption
Work with software developers, data engineers, and user experience designers to translate scientific requirements into robust technical solutions
Required Skills and Qualifications:
Ph.D. in structural biology, biophysics, computational biology, or related field
Demonstrated expertise in structural biology methods
Deep understanding of structural heterogeneity and dynamics in biomolecular systems
Experience with data standards, metadata frameworks, or scientific database development
Strong collaborative skills and ability to build consensus across diverse scientific communities
Preferred Skills and Experience:
Experience with PDB, EMDB, BMRB, or other structural biology databases
Knowledge of validation methods for experimental and computational structural data
Familiarity with machine learning workflows and ML-ready data formats
Background in model uncertainty quantification or ensemble refinement methods
Understanding of software development practices and data engineering principles
Track record of working at the interface of methods development and infrastructure
Compensation:
The posted salary range is based on location in the Bay Area. The successful candidate will receive a competitive compensation package, commensurate with their experience and location.