Senior/Staff Computer Aided Drug Design Scientist

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You will be joining an expanding molecular design team based in the new Advanced Research Centre on the University of Glasgow campus in the West End of Glasgow. The position provides the opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary team that spans engineering, robotics, chemical synthesis, drug discovery, and software development.

As a Senior/Staff Computer Aided Drug Design Scientist, your expertise and focused contributions will be instrumental in building and improving computational tools (UIs, algorithms, databases, etc) to complement our world-class integrated platform for all of Chemistry, specifically focused on enabling the thoughtful design of high-quality and innovative drug candidates for client projects spanning many Chemistry verticals from drugs (small molecules and others) to polymers, advanced materials, and others. In addition, you will use your expert chemistry and computational knowledge to use platform tools (yours and others developed by peers) to support to directly contribute to the success of these projects, providing a tangible impact for our partners and their needs to power the real world.

You will work closely with team members from the software engineering, process engineering, and chemistry team to contribute to the development of the most efficient, automated, and versatile chemical manufacturing laboratory in the world.

You will work closely with our synthetic chemists, commercial and management teams, and the partners and customers we partner with to ensure you deeply understand how the Chemify platform can create the most value for real-world challenges. You will work closely with the chemistry department to provide feedback, troubleshooting help, and new feature ideas to continuously improve the performance of the company's technology platform, which serves you and other synthetic chemists.

Responsibilities

You will primarily be:

• Developing new and improved computational tools to advance Chemify platform capabilities.
• Contributing to virtual screening and multi-parameter hit to lead optimization for small molecules.
• Be an active member of drug discovery teams and a key intellectual contributor most projects.
• Devise and implement testable hypotheses to formulate medicinal chemistry design strategies and develop virtual screening structure-based/ligand-based/ pharmacophore-based/ai driven approaches
• Conducting research in machine learning and molecular modeling relevant to drug discovery and molecular synthesis.
• Integrate experimental data and apply computational approaches to generate knowledge and insights at the molecular level
• Conduct scientific research in specific cheminformatics and molecular modeling areas applicable to drug discovery
• Contribute to the overall CADD strategy and play an active part in its implementation
• Develop ad-hoc solutions to automatize drug design
• Working closely with world-class chemists and other stakeholders to maximize the overall effectiveness of drug discovery campaigns.
• Interfacing with clients and customers to ensure the Chemify platform best serves their needs.
• Communicating transparently with the Business Development, Commercial, and Leadership teams to brainstorm and agree upon the best path to provide company and partner value through advanced chemistry.
• Planning, supervising, and executing of scientific or technical projects.
• Working with the software teams to develop modules of the automation platform and execute test plans for de novo drug design and software updates.
• Taking the initiative to develop new and more efficient processes for de novo drug design and automation.
• Documenting experiments accurately and promptly according to the company standards.
• Working on tasks as needed as the company priorities change and evolve.
• Participate from the ground up in the development and success of a transformative hyper-growth start-up.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in computational chemistry, chemistry, biophysics, biochemistry, computer science, related fields, or equivalent professional experience
• Demonstrated track record in building tools for drug discovery
• Proficiency in Python for scientific computing, syntax/semantics, data types and structures, Object-oriented programming concepts, functions and modules, testing and coverage, backend development
• Experience in leading running drug discovery campaigns
• Solid knowledge of machine learning best practices
• Minimum 3+ years of experience using major deep learning framework
• Strong analytical thinking skills and the capacity to approach challenges methodically.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS
• Enthusiasm to learn new approaches and concepts and to work with an experimental automation platform.
• Oral and written communication & presentation skills (English fluency).

Desired skills & attributes

• Experience in portfolio projects R&D to IND
• Strong foundation in computational chemistry
• Over 5 years of hands-on experience in Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) and a track record of successful portfolio projects.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a multidisciplinary team environment
• Strong interpersonal skills to effectively interact with team members, stakeholders, and external partners.
• Experience leading a small team of chemists or leading/managing syntheses projects.