Postdoctoral Fellow - Computer Aided Drug Design
Job Description
At the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, we are working to create a world without disease. Transforming lives by finding new and better ways to prevent, intercept, treat and cure disease inspires us. We bring together the best minds and pursue the most promising science. We are Janssen. We collaborate with the world for the health of everyone in it. Learn more at www.janssen.com and follow us @JanssenGlobal. Janssen Research & Development, LLC is part of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies.
The Janssen R&D Discovery, Product Development, & Supply (DPDS) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program helps early career scientists gain the training and experience needed to further their careers, while addressing the needs of global healthcare. Janssen DPDS Postdocs work side-by-side with Janssen scientists on innovative research projects and have the opportunity to present and publish their work. They also learn the functional role of scientists in the pharmaceutical industry and receive valuable career advice from mentors while building a network of professional contacts and developing the skills needed to advance their careers.
The Computer Aided Drug Discovery (CADD) group within Janssen R&D is focused on the use of modelling and computational approaches to understand the interactions between molecules, their putative biological targets, and the therapeutic consequences. The group plays a key role collaborating with therapeutic areas and other functional scientific areas to apply modelling in the discovery of new drugs.
Main Duties & Responsibilities:
- In this position, you will develop novel compound enumeration approaches which can guide the medicinal chemistry programs to find better compounds.
- We aim to improve drug discovery efficiency by enumerating ideal sets of compounds which meet specific requirements and are thus optimal to answer medicinal chemistry challenges.
- We will work with both data-driven (e.g., AI/ML and data mining) and physics-based (e.g., force field interactions, molecular dynamics and free energy) methods to computational chemistry.
- The methods will be implemented in a python-based tool, which can interface with various other internal and external tools. We expect and encourage publication of results in scientific journals.
- You will test the science extensively, develop protocols and workflows to a high quality for internal implementation.
- You will generate and pursue your own ideas in parallel with the areas of interest already identified in the group.
- You will interact directly with the other scientists in the CADD and Data Sciences group and with the medicinal chemists in the discovery programs to deliver high impact results for drug discovery projects.
- The Postdoc will incorporate into our network of internal collaborations and academic partners.
Qualifications
Qualifications
- PhD in Computational Chemistry or related field (Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Computational Chemistry), with a strong background in cheminformatics.
- Demonstrated ability to develop tools using advanced programming and scripting languages such as Python.
- Ability to work independently and develop innovative solutions.
- History of publication in peer-reviewed journals.
- Excellent oral and written communication and the ability to collaborate effectively within multi-disciplinary teams.
- Location: onsite (Beerse, Antwerp area, Belgium) - Part time remote possible
