Principal Computational Chemist - drug discovery

Your new company
You'll be joining a VC backed biotech that has already raised tens of millions of pounds of funding and is using its novel platform technology to develop innovative medicines for areas of unmet need, allowing you to have a significant impact on patients.The company has a high-performing and innovative atmosphere, driven by the highly experienced leadership team which has an excellent track record of developing therapeutics.They are going into their next phase of growth and are looking to further build up their R&D teams within chemistry and biology with the addition of an experienced computational chemist to focus on leading early drug discovery projects.This is a full-time position, with hybrid working based out of their site in London.

Your new role
This is a permanent position, sitting in the Discovery Chemistry team, and working closely with a variety of internal colleagues and external stakeholders and vendors.The role is hybrid, requiring some time on site, and is focused on leading the company's computational chemistry efforts as they develop the next generation of small molecule therapeutics.Major responsibilities will include a mix of (but aren't limited to):

• Acting as a technical lead on drug discovery projects
• Driving early discovery work from Hit ID through to Lead Optimisation and beyond
• Manage virtual screening projects, eg assessing structure or ligand binding to identify novel hits and assist with progressing programmes through the company's portfolio
• Support experimental design with colleagues in other departments
• Develop and then implement computational chemistry strategies
• Assess, optimise and add new software into the company's discovery platform
• Customising / developing new workflows, tools or pipelines
• Identify requirements from internal stakeholders and help to develop new approaches
• Presenting results to senior leadership and other stakeholders, eg within medicinal chemistry or biology teams

What you'll need to succeed
As well as strong communication skills for dealing with internal collaborators and stakeholders, you should have:

• An MSc / PhD (or equivalent experience) in computational chemistry or a life sciences discipline such as chemistry, biochemistry, bioinformatics, or similar with a strong computational element
• A track record of drug discovery within a pharmaceutical, biotech or contract research/CRO company or similar, preferably as a project leader
• Deep hands-on expertise of applying both structure-based and ligand-based drug design approaches to discovery projects
• Experience with computational chemistry techniques
  such as conformational analysis, free energy calculations, homology modelling, etc
• Good programming skills in a language such as Python, C++, R, Java or similar
• Knowledge of Cloud computing, with experience of containerisation / Docker an advantage
• The ability to work with external CROs or other research partners
• Project management experience, coupled with a deep seated interest in problem solving

Experience of molecular dynamics (eg NAMD, Gromacs, AMBER) or applying Quantum Chemistry or QM/MM techniques are not necessary for this role, however it would be an advantage, as would knowledge of protein degradation / PROTACS / molecular glue projects.

What you'll get in return
You'll get the chance to make a significant impact on the company's drug discovery and development projects, taking on project leadership for a number of different aspects within computational chemistry as they develop the next generation of medicines.The company are relatively open on salary bands depending on the skills of the person coming in and the benefits package associated with the role is quite generous.

What you need to do now
If you're interested in this role, click 'apply now' to forward an up-to-date copy of your CV, or call me on .If this job isn't quite right for you but you are looking for a new position, please contact us for a confidential discussion on your career, especially as there are a number of other bioinformatics, data science and statistics positions available.

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