Chemoinformatician

An exciting opportunity has been created for a talented chemoinformatician to work on methods for the annotation, searching and visualization of toxicologically relevant data. The position is funded by EU projects concerned with the better prediction and assessment of the toxicity of pharmaceutical and environmental chemicals.

Based in the ChEMBL Team at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) the appointee will work with members of the ChEMBL team and collaborators across Europe to deliver tools, methods and data in the toxicity domain.

Your role

Reporting to the ChEMBL Group Coordinator, you will have excellent attention to detail, strong communication skills and be able to interact with technical experts as well as scientists seeking solutions to their "real world" problems. The specific job responsibilities include:

To extend and validate pipelines for mapping chemical names to chemical structures using a variety of resources such as ChEMBL and PubChem as well as EPA and FDA resources;
To develop prototype web-based visualization methods for complex toxicological datasets;
Implement substructure and similarity searching methods to query these datasets;
Develop automated methods for the processing and standardizing of chemical structures;
Develop pipelines for importing and exporting large complex datasets to and from ChEMBL and other databases;
To work with project teams to integrate the developed methods into the project infrastructure.

You have

A PhD (or equivalent) in a chemical or biological science;
Sound knowledge of chemistry and cheminformatics methods including experience of working with cheminformatics software such as RDKit;
Proficiency in at least one programming/scripting language (Python knowledge is highly desirable);
Experience of working with relational databases;
Ability to work accurately and quickly to deadlines;
Able to work both as part of a team and independently;
Good communication skills (both verbal and presentational).

You might also have

Experience of developing websites and/or RESTful web-services;
Experience of analyzing and modelling large drug discovery datasets in particular toxicological data;
Knowledge of a range of bioinformatics tools and resources e.g. reactome, BLAST, UniProt;
Experience of working in large collaborative projects.

Why join us

At EMBL-EBI, we help scientists realise the potential of ‘big data’ in biology by enabling them to exploit complex information to make discoveries that benefit mankind. Working for EMBL-EBI gives you an opportunity to apply your skills and energy for the greater good. As part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), we are a non-profit, intergovernmental organisation funded by 22 member states and two associate member states. We are located on the Wellcome Genome Campus near Cambridge in the UK, and our 600 staff are engineers, technicians, scientists and other professionals from all over the world.

EMBL is an inclusive, equal opportunity employer offering attractive conditions and benefits appropriate to an international research organisation. The remuneration package comprises a competitive salary, a comprehensive pension scheme and health insurance, educational and other family related benefits where applicable, as well as financial support for relocation and installation. For more information about pay and benefits click here.

We have an informal culture, international working environment and excellent professional development opportunities but one of the really amazing things about us is the concentration of technical and scientific expertise – something you probably won’t find anywhere else.

If you’ve ever visited the campus you’ll have experienced first-hand our friendly, collegial and supportive atmosphere, set in the beautiful Cambridgeshire countryside. Our staff also enjoy excellent sports facilities including a gym, a free shuttle bus, an on-site nursery, cafés and restaurant and a library.