Computational Drug Designer

Description

Isomorphic Labs is applying frontier AI to help unlock deeper scientific insights, faster breakthroughs, and life-changing medicines with an ambition to solve all disease. You will play an integral role in our drug discovery project teams, applying your knowledge and track record of modern drug design principles to provide strategic input to advance our programs. You will apply the latest AI to computational drug design, gaining hands-on experience using state-of-the-art computational tools for real-world drug discovery challenges. Alongside world-leading AI/ML Drug Design Platform teams, you will deliver scientific expertise and strategic direction to drive improvements in our platform.

Responsibilities

• Apply your expertise in computational drug design to solve drug design problems and provide technical direction to our Platform teams.
• Collaborate internally and with third party organisations to support the data-driven delivery of high quality designs, and solutions to complex technical problems.
• Prepare detailed scientific proposals and reports to support new and ongoing drug discovery programs.
• Mentor and support the development of more junior colleagues in our growing team.
• Embrace and champion our culture of inclusion and continuous professional development.

Skills and qualifications

Essential:

• PhD in Computational Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Synthetic Organic Chemistry (or a related technical field), or equivalent industrial experience.
• 5+ years industrial experience in computational chemistry (CADD), operating within a biotech or pharma setting.
• Strong foundational knowledge of modern computational chemistry, including core computational chemistry concepts (e.g. cheminformatics, virtual screening, docking, machine learning models, model assessment).
• Experience of contributing to structure-based drug design (SBDD) problems, with a proven track record of success.
• Experience of writing and implementing Python scripts, or utilising pipelining tools, to support project teams in cheminformatic and computational chemistry design workflows.
• A genuine passion and enthusiasm for applying AI/ML to drug design and how this can transform the field.
• Excellent communication (written and verbal) and interpersonal skills, with an ability to work effectively in a cross-functional, collaborative team environment.
• A strong growth mindset, adaptability, and eagerness to learn new concepts and techniques.

Nice to have:

• Experience working with or managing activities at contract research organisations (CROs).
• Familiarity with medicinal chemistry techniques (e.g. data analysis software, ADMET principles).
• Knowledge of other specific drug discovery approaches like fragment-based drug design (FBDD), and alternative modalities like PROTACs, molecular glues, PPI inhibitors or stabilisers etc.
• Basic understanding of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) principles.
• Fluency in Python with ability to write code for new tools.
• Track record of authorship of relevant scientific manuscripts and/or inventorship of composition of matter patents.