Post-doc Computer-Aided Drug Design

Role Overview:
The successful candidate will develop and apply Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) methodologies to advance drug discovery projects. Their work will focus on improving the molecular understanding of ligand-protein interactions and translating these insights into the design of novel small-molecule, drug-like compounds. The candidate will join a well-integrated, multidisciplinary team and help guide ongoing drug synthesis and biological screening activities. The results are expected to lead to publications in high-quality scientific journals and to contribute to the specific goal of developing new medicines for Alzheimer’s disease.

Responsibilities:
- Develop and apply CADD methodologies to advance drug discovery projects.
- Improve molecular understanding of ligand-protein interactions.
- Translate molecular understanding into structure-activity relationships and structure-kinetics relationships.
- Guide ongoing drug synthesis and biological screening activities.
- Collaborate with colleagues performing synthesis and screening.
- Communicate results effectively and motivate/teach colleagues and undergraduate students.

Requirements:
- Ability to understand and predict ligand-protein interactions.
- Experience in fragment-based drug design and structure-based drug design.
- Experience in developing detailed structure-activity relationships.
- Experience in applying a wide variety of CADD techniques, including protein-structure predictions, molecular dynamics, free-energy perturbations, structural chemogenomics, machine learning, AI, etc.
- Data management expertise, cheminformatics, and bioinformatics.
- Good communicative skills in writing and speaking.
- Ability to motivate and teach colleagues and undergraduate students.

Qualifications:
- Recognised Researcher (R2) profile.
- Demonstrated expertise in CADD methodologies.
- Proven experience in drug design and development.
- Strong background in molecular understanding and data analysis.
- Excellent communication and teaching abilities.

What They Offer:
- A challenging position in a socially engaged organisation.
- Salary of minimum €3.546,00 (Scale 10) and maximum €5.538,00 (Scale 10) gross per month, on a full-time basis.
- Position for at least 0.8 FTE.
- Employment contract initially lasting 1 year.
- Attractive fringe benefits and regulations.
- Full-time 38-hour working week with 232 hours of holiday leave per year.
- 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
- Space for personal development.
- Access to sports facilities and cultural activities.