Post Doctoral Fellow - Computational Biophysics

Description

Boehringer Ingelheim is seeking an enthusiastic, creative, and highly motivated Postdoctoral Fellow to join the Imaging and  Simulation Lab Group in New Therapeutic Modalities Section (NTM) Department at our US headquarters in Ridgefield, CT. The Ridgefield campus, along with our sister sites in Texas and California, includes a thriving community of postdocs and PhD students that connects globally with their peers on our European campuses. The postdoc will work on state-of-the-art computational predictive tools to accelerate drug product development. She/he will support understanding and strategies of formulation development and corresponding analytics of new therapeutic modalities. The postdoc will be expected to drive innovation by developing deep understanding of nature of molecular interactions of therapeutic molecules in formulation and further leverage the predictive pipeline by implementing cutting-edge molecular modeling and machine learning techniques. 

As a Postdoctoral Fellow, you will be responsible for conducting independent research under the direct guidance of an experienced Principal Investigator and further supported by a team of experts committed to your success. You will interact with a diverse range of individuals (including mentors, fellow researchers, students, and collaborators from various institutions), and help to foster a collaborative research environment that facilitates exchange of knowledge and ideas. Your research will be focused on fundamental scientific questions and new methodologies that align with the goals of the department and contribute to Boehringer-Ingelheim’s innovative and growing pipeline. You will be expected to present your work to internal leadership and, ultimately, publish your findings in leading journals within the field. Postdoctoral Fellowships are three-year positions, with a potential one-year extension.

As an employee of Boehringer Ingelheim, you will actively contribute to the discovery, development, and delivery of our products to our patients and customers. Our global presence provides an opportunity for all employees to collaborate internationally, offering visibility and the opportunity to directly contribute to the company's success. We realize that our strength and competitive advantage lie with our people. We support our employees in several ways to foster a healthy working environment, meaningful work, mobility, networking, and work-life balance. Our competitive compensation and benefit programs reflect Boehringer Ingelheim's high regard for our employees.

Duties & Responsibilities

With support from their advisor and team, the ideal candidate is expected to:

• Develop and apply diverse molecular modeling, simulation tools and machine learning based approaches to accelerate development of formulation for new therapeutic modalities
• Design robust, innovative predictive pipeline(s) to explore molecular behavior of therapeutic molecules and entities in complex formulation models
• Leverage the accuracy and applicability of the predictive pipelines by integrating and comparing with experimental data (eg., NMR, SAXS, DLS, Cryo-EM etc)
• Design and conduct their own independent research project(s)
• Collaborate with other researchers within and outside Boehringer Ingelheim
• Effectively communicate and defend their own work in the context of team and department goals, both orally and in writing. 
• Publish first-author manuscript(s) and/or patenting of novel technologies/processes. 
• Establish an international reputation in their area of expertise with publications and conference participation at national and international events.
• Comply with applicable regulations; perform all work in a safe manner; maintain proper records in accordance with SOPs and policies.

Compensation Data

This position offers a base salary of $80,000.00 USD. For an overview of our benefits please click here.

Requirements

• Ph.D Degree in computational biophysics, soft matter, chemistry or a related discipline
• Strong background and proven experience of using molecular modeling and modern simulation tools (eg., Gromacs, LAMMPS, OpenMM, Maestro) for simulation of soft matter and biomolecules (eg., polymer, hydrogels, co-solutes, lipid molecules, peptides etc).
• Experience in force field parametrization of small molecules and free energy sampling techniques
• Expertise in modern coding languages, object oriented programming (Python, R, Matlab, C/C++) and use of Jupyter Notebook
• Track record of scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently and collaboratively
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal

Eligibility Requirements:

• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without restriction.
• Must be willing to take a drug test and post-offer physical (if required).
• Must be 18 years of age or older.

Desired Skills, Experience and Abilities

• Knowledge of chemoinformatic tools and machine learning methods in related field (eg., RDKit, OpenBabel, DeepChem, Scikit-learn, Pytorch, TensorFlow etc) is strongly preferred
• Understanding of de-novo structure prediction tools, eg., AlphaFold, Boltz1, Rosetta is desirable
• Basic understanding of structure prediction experiments (eq., NMR, SAXS, Cryo-EM) and molecular imaging methods is preferred