The ChEMBL-og

There is currently an opening for a Protein Computational Scientist to work on methods to assess and quantify the tractability (druggability) of potential new targets for drug discovery. This is a two year position funded by the Open Targets initiative. The appointee will work with scientists from the Open Targets partners to assess, validate and develop methods for quantifying target tractability with the ultimate goal of incorporating such methodologies into the target validation platform (https://www.targetvalidation.org/). The initial focus will be on “small molecule” tractability but we are also interested in other modalities in due course (e.g. antibody therapies). Many of the current methods to assess small molecule tractability are based on the use of 3D protein structures, but such information is only available for a subset of potential targets; a key component of the project is to determine robust methods and pipelines that can be applied to novel targets where there i...

We got a prize today , so we are happy. What better way to celebrate, than to recruit someone new for the group. We have a position available for a developer to support web service development and integration for the Knowledge Management Centre part of the recently announced NIH Illuminating the Druggable Genome project, see this link for details of the job. Closing deadline for applications is 12th October 2014 .

We have two positions in the group currently open, both working on bioassay data aspects of the ChEMBL database. One is funded by a Wellcome Trust Grant, and the other under funding from the newly established EMBL-EBI/Sanger Center/GSK  Center for Therapeutic Target Validation (CTTV). These are both great opportunities to work in a fun group committed to working on Open Data to help drug discovery. Curating and organising bioactivity data in the ChEMBL database in a structured way. Mapping measured bioactivity data from the scientific literature to other biological entities (proteins, cell-lines etc) using a variety of biological resources and ontologies. Storing the information in the ChEMBL database in a structured format. Implementing curation pipelines for data from complex and phenotypic assays such as those from cell-based and whole organism studies. Manually checking and annotating data by reference to the original data sources. Developing semi-automa...

As part of a collaboration the ChEMBL group are involved in with UCL, we are looking to appoint to a full time, three-year position in the Genetic Epidemiology Group, Institute of Cardiovascular Science, one of the component institutes of the UCL Faculty of Population Health Sciences. The appointee will join an exciting programme of work funded by the UCL National Institute of Heath Research Biomedical Research Centre, through its High Impact Award scheme. The appointee will apply bioinformatic expertise to the late stage development of a new high density genotyping array designed to support drug target validation and related drug development issues; co-ordinate deployment of the array in a large consortium of highly-phenotyped cohort studies (the University College-London School of Hygiene-Edinburgh-Bristol consortium); undertake statistical analysis of the data; and play a leading role in writing manuscripts reporting findings arising from this work. The post is based at UCL, bu...

Some of our collaborators at the Karolinska have a great job available - the advert is here . Division Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden (CBCS) are looking for a highly motivated and talented Cheminformatics Scientist to support and coordinate a wide scope of research informatics applications and data analysis at our Stockholm facilities. Duties The desired candidate will have a demonstrated track record in managing large volumes of scientific data in support of basic research and/or drug discovery projects and should have significant experience with in-house and commercial software solutions that facilitate data capture, analysis and visualization in small molecule research and drug design. Responsibilities include: Evaluation and implementation of a nationally encompassing chemoinformatics system for the SciLifeLab community. Maintainance, configuration, monitoring, and/or troubleshooting scientific applications and underlying software.  Partnering and interaction ...

An outstanding opportunity for computational research using approaches such as  bioinformatics, genomics, systems biology, mathematical modelling, image analysis. The Francis Crick Institute    http://www.crick.ac.uk The Francis Crick Institute will open at St Pancras in central London in 2015. Its research will use interdisciplinary approaches to investigate the biology of human health and disease, supported by core funding from CRUK, the MRC, and the Wellcome Trust, and by grants from UK and international funding agencies. The Crick is expanding Computational Biology research as a key component of its scientific strategy. The institute will offer an outstanding environment for computational research, with excellent opportunities for wet/dry collaborations across the range of biomedical and clinical research disciplines, supported by a strategic alliance with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. The new Crick laboratories will feature excellent computatio...

One of our  bff's are the guys and gals at the SGC in Oxford, they have recently got a grant to establish a University-wide Chemical Biology Platform, and are now looking for a Project Manager for this effort. Here are details of the job....

The diXa project is looking to recruit a someone to provide part-time maternity cover for the Scientific Training & Dissemination Officer in the Industry Support team which is based at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) located in Hinxton, near Cambridge in the UK. The diXa project is dedicated to developing and implementing a robust and sustainable service infrastructure for data from EU-funded research into non-animal tests for predicting chemical safety ( http://www.diXa-fp7.eu/ ). EMBL-EBI is a partner in the diXa project with a number of responsibilities. The overall objectives for the position will be to deliver a core set of project-related training and dissemination services to the Toxicogenomics Research Community and to help foster effective use of resources provided through the project working with colleagues at EMBL-EBI and the other partner sites. The successful candidate will also liaise with other groups involved in training and ...

The joy in submitting a PhD is insurmountable, and some say it feels like going to heaven ( n.b. Ben!). Anyway, four EMBL-EBI faculty are recruiting PhD students in this round of the EMBL International PhD Programme.  The deadline for submissions is 17th June 2013 - so not long away now - get your skates on if you are interested. These four year studentships will be available from October 2013 onwards. The labs taking students this round are: Alex Bateman's group . John Overington's group . Chris Steinbeck's group . Sarah Teichmann's group . Click on the links above to see current group research interests. There are also other excellent PhD studentship opportunities available at EMBL in Heidelberg and various of the other EMBL Outstations - for details see here . jpo

Our friendly neighbours at The Babraham Institute are looking for a PhD candidate to work on systems pharmacology models, as part of a collaboration between the Le Novère (Babraham), the Hermjakob (EMBL-EBI) and the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. The  Le Novère group uses quantitative computational models to understand cellular and molecular processes, and develop community services that facilitate research in computational systems biology ( http://lenoverelab.org ). One of the major challenges of drug discovery is to demonstrate the efficacy of a potential new drug. This goes beyond the development of a potent molecule - it also implies a good understanding of the biological context, how it relates to a particular disease, and the drug's mechanism of action. The availability of relevant Systems Pharmacology models can therefore have a significant impact. The most comprehensive repository of Systems Biology models in machine readable language is BioModels Da...

One of our Industry Programme members passed on a listing for some positions they are looking to fill at the new center in Heidelberg - BioMed X. It looks like it may be of interest to many of the ChEMBL-og readers, so I thought I would post it here.... They are looking for a Computational Chemistry/Drug Design group leader for a project "Development of a design software of SELECTIVE kinase inhibitors". The BioMed X Innovation Center in Heidelberg, Germany, constitutes a new class of incubator at the interface between academia and industry where top life science talents from all over the world are jointly working on biomedical innovation outside the pharma box. Young talents from leading academic institutions world-wide are selected in annual assessment centers based on their scientific expertise, creative energy, and passion for product-oriented pre-clinical research & development. Interdisciplinary project teams are collaborating in an open-innovation lab facility in...

We have a position in the group in the area of ion-channel structural pharmacology - mapping known ion-channel modulators to sequences and binding sites. This will be in partnership with Pfizer, and the role will involve time spent both at the EBI and at Pfizer's labs in the Cambridge UK area - so a great opportunity to pick up some industrial experience. If you are interested, please get in touch by December 15th 2012 , when we will shortlist candidates for interview.

Novartis have a position available in Cambridge MA.... ...for a highly motivated scientist in the in silico Lead Discovery group of the Center for Proteomic Chemistry platform. This is an exciting opportunity to perform cutting-edge computational research at their Cambridge USA site. The position will be responsible for the development of robust computational hypothesis with a variety of drug discovery project teams for the purposes of lead discovery, and will apply state of the art computational approaches to elucidate the biological profile of small molecules regarding their targets, off-targets and phenotypic outcome via an in-depth understanding of biological networks, systems biology, bioinformatics and cheminformatics. Further details are available here .

Just a reminder of the opening of applications for the EMBL postdoc scheme - EIPOD for 2012. Get in touch if you're interested in our draft project.

We have an interdisciplinary postdoc project available as part of EMBL's EIPOD program (details here ). The project with is Matthias Willmanns based at EMBL Hamburg , and the appointee will spend time in both labs in a combined computational and experimental project aimed at discovering the mode of action of high-throughput screening hits from an anti-tuberculosis assay. Further details of the project are available here . This is deliberately brief, and candidates are meant to flesh out the project design as part of the application process. The deadline for applications is 5pm CEST 13th September 2012 .

For a long time now we have been keen to release a full and freely deployable version of the ChEMBL database with compound search capabilities built in. This has been possible in the past, but complicated by commercial licenses associated with either the databases or the chemical cartridges. There are now a number mature Open Source chemical toolkits available, such as the excellent CDK , and  RDKit. So with that brief bit of background there is now an opportunity for an intern to work in the ChEMBL group on the project for 2-3 months. The idea is will be to setup a process which: Creates a PostgreSQL version of the ChEMBL database (database required by RDKit). Install the RDKit chemical cartridge . Migrate this setup to Amazon Web Service public image . Migrate existing (or new) ChEMBL interface to run off new database and package this up into AWS image. Develop scripts to allow new releases of ChEMBL to be processed and uploaded as a new AWS image. Actually some wor...

Due to a lot of wasted time in the past, my lab does not host or support applications to the Amgen Scholars Program, so please do not apply to us!

The deadline is approaching for two posts in the ChEMBL group - one a web developer, and the other a data integration position. The posts are three year fixed term contracts. Closing dates for applications is the 27th November 2011 . Further details should be available here Web Developer  ( EBI_00145) Data Integration  ( EBI_00144) If you have any questions, please feel free to  contact us .

We have two posts available in the ChEMBL group - one a web developer, and the other a data integration post. The positions are both for three years and will be EMBL staff contracts. Closing dates for applications is the 27th November 2011 . Further details should be available here (the links are quite fragile I'm afraid, so sorry if they do not keep working for long) Web Developer  ( EBI_00145) Data Integration  ( EBI_00144) If you have any questions, please feel free to  contact us .

From the lab of one of our collaborators comes the following...... Details of forthcoming PhD studentships at The Institute of Cancer Research  ICR are now on-line ; There are 12 studentships across a range of different disciplines including Biology, Chemistry, Informatics and Medical Physics. The deadline for applications is 1st December 2011 . There is a specific studentship of likely interest to ChEMBL-og readers -  Identifying novel targets and target combinations for cancer using in-silico chemical biology , within the  Computational Biology and Chemogenomics Team of the ICR. This is a computational biology/lab biology PhD jointly between Dr. Bissan Al-Lazikani and Prof. Paul Workman. The project is an exciting multi-disciplnary project that will utilise bioinformatics and chemogenomics techniques, protein interaction network modelling as well as laboratory biology to identify novel drug intervention targets (and compounds) for use in combination therapie...