Principal Scientist, Computational Chemistry, Johnson & Johnson

November 16, 2014

Principal Scientist, Computational Chemistry, Johnson & Johnson

Location: Shanghai, China

Description

The individual would be expected to be a significant contributor at the early stages of a project's course from inception, early target/project validation, and portfolio entry. Based on strong interactions with experts in all areas of drug discovery (chemistry, structure biology etc), they would be able to identify key drug design issues, propose and implement creative solutions, helping and/or guiding team accomplishment. They would develop and execute creative directions in target modulation using chemistry as a key driver. Importantly the individual should be scientifically curious, taking the initiative to propose and explore new research directions, new projects and/or new technologies. The individual would be naturally effective in initiating and building collaborations with other discovery scientists, both inside and outside the organization. They would share and solicit best practice, both within and outside project team.

Qualifications

· Ph. D. in computational chemistry plus 2 years post-doctoral experience or the equivalent pharmaceutical experience.

· 5+ years of experience working as a computational chemist in the pharmaceutical industry as a member of discovery project teams.

Technical Skill Requirements - Specific objectives would include but not limited to:

· Build strong relationships with medicinal chemists as well as the computational chemistry community within Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

· A proven track record for contributions to medicinal chemistry projects as judged by the publication track records.

· Rational library design and high-throughput screening (HTS) follow up using those approaches: structural diversity, similarity searching, QSAR, quantum mechanics, virtual screening, scaffold hopping, data and binding pocket mining.

· Development and implementation of Cheminformatics strategies to identify SAR trends and contribute to the design of novel analogs that address these issues.

· Data visualization, explanation of the technical approach and presentation of the results to the team members during meetings.

· Extensive analysis of public and in-house X-Ray structural data. Potentially lead the structural biology collaborations.

· Help to develop and maintain the state-of-the-art technology by evaluation of new software and by collaboration with external experts.

· The candidate should be familiar with and has a sound knowledge of LINUX environment and practical experience in one or more scripting language and/or programming such as Schrodinger, CCG, CCDC, Openeye modeling packages, as well as Pipeline pilot or Knime, Shells, Python, C, C++, etc.

· Good knowledge of the hit to lead and lead optimization process.

· A bonus for the candidate, a good understanding of the target identification, PK/PD, Biophysics/Biochemistry approaches related to drug discovery.

· Strong oral and written communications skills in English.

· Fluent in Chinese is a plus but not required.

Please sent CV to Zhao-Kui (ZK) Wan at zwan1@its.jnj.com

Posted on November 16, 2014