location_onOxford, UK
watch_later Posted: Feb 13, 2024
Skills Required
Nice To Have skills
Job Description
Description
About Us
Exscientia is an AI-driven pharmatech company committed to discovering, designing and developing the best possible drugs in the fastest and most effective manner. Exscientia developed the first-ever functional precision oncology platform to successfully guide treatment selection and improve patient outcomes in a prospective interventional clinical study, as well as to progress AI-designed small molecules into the clinical setting.
Our pipeline demonstrates our ability to rapidly translate scientific concepts into precision-designed therapeutic candidates, with more than 15 projects underway. By designing better drugs, faster, we believe the best ideas of science can rapidly become the best medicines for patients.
The Role
- As the Head of Structural Biology you will have the opportunity to lead a high-performing team and drive the growth of our structure-based design capabilities across drug discovery portfolios. Working at the intersection of experimental structural biology, drug design, AI, physics, and informatics, you will be responsible for building technical solutions that increase the quality and efficiency of our design capability.
- Please note this is a UK-based hybrid role and regular travel is required to our offices in Oxford, UK (approximately 2-3 days per week), with flexibility to work from home the remaining time. We are a flexible working organisation and we’re willing to consider other options which would provide similar contact time with the team.
- You will have the opportunity to:
- Design industry leading strategies which enable structure-based design and the development of molecules to advance our drug discovery portfolio.
- Utilise the latest advances in AI and experimental techniques to drive drug discovery programs and automate our approach to generate structures and accelerate structural insights.
- Lead a small team of talented Structural Biologists (X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM) and foster a positive work environment that supports team growth.
- Collaborate with our team of drug designers and AI/ML data scientists to enhance our structure-based design methods.
- Manage structural biology resources and develop and implement strategies to deliver on portfolios.
- Take an active role in target/tractability assessment and hit finding activities, especially fragment-based lead discovery.
- Communicate and evangelise by sharing your work through internal and external presentations, conferences, or scientific publications, actively promoting our innovative approach.
Requirements
Essential skills:
- PhD in Structural Biology, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Computational Sciences, or a related subject area.
- Minimum of 8-10 years of experience in an industry setting, with particular focus on small molecules.
- Proven ability to build and lead highly functioning cross-functional teams of scientists.
- Experience with one or multiple structural biology techniques (e.g. X-ray and Cryo-EM, NMR or HDX-MS) and computationally literate to build computational pipelines.
- Proven experience automating processes either in silico or experimental and the diagnostics needed to do so.
- Excellent communication skills with a passion for fostering a collaborative work environment and ability to work productively with others.
- Demonstrated scientific track record in publications, patent applications, conference posters, or oral presentations.
Desirable skills:
- Familiarity with small molecule drug discovery projects.
- Experience liaising with academic and industrial partners.
- Proficiency in programming or leading programmers, preferably Python, for scripting, data analysis, pipeline, and tool development.