To support the QSAR and Chemoinformatics community, we post relevant jobs on this web page. If you would like to advertise please contact us by email (ukqsar@ukqsar.org).
Team Leader, Computational Chemistry – Domainex, Cambridge UK
About Domainex:
Domainex is a multi-award winning integrated drug discovery CRO that has been setting the highest standards in drug discovery, with a particular emphasis on small molecule research, since 2001. We work in partnership with clients from a variety of sectors including academic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and patient foundation organisations around the world. Our vision is to be the pre-eminent partner for innovative drug discovery services that improve the quality of life for people living with disease.
We offer our clients tailored services for every step of the drug discovery process, from expression of recombinant proteins and screening against disease targets to identify hit compounds, through the design and medicinal chemistry optimisation of hits and leads, to take these all the way to pre-clinical drug candidates. Our multidisciplinary team of scientists works closely with our partners to generate innovative ideas, and to deliver high-quality results and outputs (e.g. crystallography-grade proteins and novel compounds that meet the desired target product profile), whilst at all times upholding the very highest standards of confidentiality. We have established a strong reputation with a very high level of repeat business and a proven record of success, some of which we can illustrate through the publications and case studies our clients have allowed us to put in the public domain. We have received several awards recognising our customer focus and innovative approach to drug discovery.
What Are We Looking For In This Exciting New Role?
When you join Domainex we will be looking for you to have the ability to –
- Utilize our Schrodinger platform of computational chemistry to deliver programs of research for client sponsored projects
- Apply your knowledge of computational chemistry within a drug discovery setting to influence clients to pursue further value-creating research projects
- Drive and implement new computational chemistry tools and services
- In conjunction with the Domainex leadership team proactively contribute to the future growth and strategic direction of computational chemistry within the organisation
- Seek to publish articles/papers, posters and patents to contribute to upholding the strong scientific reputation of Domainex in the market place
- Line manage up to 1 scientist and set their research goals
- Support the business development team by providing technical input in securing new business
What Educational Background Are We Expecting?
- A PhD in Computational Chemistry
What Experience Will You Have?
- Hold > 5 years of experience as a computational chemist within a professional drug design environment or organization
- A sound knowledge of general computational chemistry techniques including open source packages
- Experience in the areas of SBDD and virtual screening highly preferred but not mandatory
- Proven experience of working with small molecules and knowledge of compound design principles
- A good understanding of the related drug discovery disciplines necessary to support drug discovery programs, such as chemistry and structural biology
- Versed in the use of pipelining tools, such as Knime, within a drug discovery setting
- Experience with Linux and high-performance computing
- Effective verbal and written communication skills
- Motivated and pro-active for addressing new challenges and providing solutions
- Evidence of a high level of soft skills and the fostering of cross discipline relationships
- Working within multi-disciplinary project teams
- Track record of training and mentoring more junior computational chemists preferred but not mandatory.
What Can We Offer You?
Your highly competitive salary will be determined by your qualifications and your experience along with our excellent benefits package of a 5% pension contribution from yourself with a 10% contribution by Domainex; a private medical insurance scheme for you with discounted benefits for your family; annual leave of 25 days plus bank holidays and a day off for your birthday; loyal service awards and other great benefits such as discounted gym membership and a lift share scheme.
We are based on the Chesterford Research Park just outside of the beautiful market town of Saffron Walden, fifteen miles from the beautiful city of Cambridge. Chesterford Research Park has fabulous facilities including a restaurant, a gym, a six hole golf course and woodland walks.
We welcome all applications into our already diverse and inclusive workplace where we do all we can to assist each and every member of our fantastic team to reach their full potential in their chosen field. Feel free to apply for this role today or drop us a line to have a chat as there may be other options for you to explore within our growing organisation.
Posted 15th October 2024
Cheminformatics Scientist – GSK UK
The new Research Tech Data & Predictive Sciences function is focussed on harnessing the power of GSK’s data-as-an-asset to drive research productivity. As a member of the Cheminformatics (CIX) group, you will be focused on developing, integrating and embedding advanced computational methods and predictive in silico models that accelerate the discovery of medicines. Data & Predictive Sciences will only be successful by working in close collaboration with Research Tech, Therapeutic Areas, GSK Tech, AIML, Vaccines, Risk & Compliance, and across lines within the function itself, and by developing and fostering a high-performing team culture of collaboration, curiosity, consistency, agility, quality, peer review, and continuous improvement with a relentless focus on enabling value realization through end-user uptake and measuring impact.
We create a place where people can grow, be their best, be safe, and feel welcome, valued and included. We offer a competitive salary, an annual bonus based on company performance, healthcare and wellbeing programmes, pension plan membership, and shares and savings programme. We embrace modern work practises; our Performance with Choice programme offers a hybrid working model, empowering you to find the optimal balance between remote and in-office work. Discover more about our company wide benefits and life at GSK on our webpage Life at GSK | GSK
In this role you will have the opportunity to
- Apply machine learning and related methods at scale to GSK’s large proprietary datasets to build robust predictive models for application to drug discovery programs
- Integrate with program teams to solve drug discovery project issues using cheminformatics tools, platforms and solutions
- Contribute to and validate code implementing state-of the-art, production quality cheminformatics and computational chemistry methods that accelerate, automate and improve decision making on drug discovery programs
- Prepare and present results of key validation experiments, details of capability builds, and developments on active drug discovery projects to internal and external groups in a way that is both informative and accessible to the non-subject matter expert.
- Work with others within a multidisciplinary matrix team that spans different organizations and geographies to execute on joint objectives
Why you?
Basic Qualifications & Skills:
We are looking for professionals with these required skills to achieve our goals:
- PhD or MSc in Cheminformatics, Computational Chemistry, Informatics, Life Sciences, Mathematics or equivalent.
- Evidence of a broad knowledge of computational sciences including knowledge of machine learning, computational chemistry and cheminformatics methods applied to drug design across different modalities.
- Expertise to programmatically collect, combine, mine and analyse complex biological and chemical data to build predictive models.
- Evidence of developing and utilizing computer programming and scripting languages such as Python, Java, C/C++, R with knowledge of basic software development practices.
- Expertise with chemical toolkits such as ChemAxon, RDkit and scientific pipelining tools such as Pipeline Pilot or KNIME.
- Evidence of strong critical thinking skills, problem-solving & high learning agility.
Preferred Qualifications & Skills:
Having at least one of the below is preferred. If you do not have any of them, please still apply:
- Experience applying DNN to drug discovery including de-novo molecular generation, reaction and retrosynthetic prediction, property prediction.
- Experience working with 3D protein-ligand methods including structure-based design, virtual screening, molecular docking, molecular dynamics, free energy perturbation.
- Experience applying modern experimental design and acquisition strategies to library design and high throughput chemistry including methods such as Bayesian optimization.
- Experience utilising software development tooling across HPC and Cloud including GitHub, DevOps automation and Containerisation. Experience applying cheminformatics & predictive modelling methods to project support.
Closing Date for Applications – 2nd October 2024