Research Fellow, Computational Chemistry – 8+ years

Company Description

Eurofins Scientific is an international life sciences company. It offers a unique range of analytical services to clients across numerous industries, contributing to a safer, healthier, and more sustainable world. From food and drinking water to pharmaceuticals, Eurofins collaborates with the world’s leading companies to ensure product safety, ingredient authenticity, and labeling accuracy. Eurofins is a global leader in food, environmental, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic testing, as well as contract research (CRO) services in the agricultural sciences. In just 30 years, Eurofins has grown from a single laboratory in Nantes, France, to a network of over 1,000 independent companies operating more than 900 laboratories in over 62 countries and employing more than 62,000 people.

Job Description

Eurofins Discovery is very motivated to apply computational sciences, data visualization, bioinformatics and other data-driven approaches to all steps of the drug development process at every level of the organization. Given the expanding scope of the Drug Discovery Chemistry group’s operations, the successful candidate will have the opportunity to continue to build on the existing team to achieve this goal. They will be a champion of promoting computational sciences as an integral part of Hit Finding campaigns, modern ML/AI supported drug discovery and Eurofins flagship Integrated Drug Discovery Programs under DiscoveryOne. They will work closely with DiscoveryAI business to support/lead Eurofins Discovery wider AI based initiatives. This individual will be responsible for technical consultation with our chemistry and biology experts and scientists, overseeing and leading scientific data governance, analytical tool development, computational chemistry methods development, and meta-analyses of internal and external data from multiple technologies.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Represent Computational Chemistry as the subject matter expert for nonclinical research and development;
• Independently pursue research projects, implement novel computational workflows and support a dynamic multi-disciplinary team focused on moving projects from the hit identification stage to the discovery of clinical candidate;
• Contribute to the development, implementation and utilization of state-of-the-art computational software, computer aided drug design and simulation techniques to help drive in silico drug discovery activities;
• Responsible for the analysis, interpretation, integration and reporting of research informatics data generated with internal teams and external clients;
• Partner with and support medicinal chemistry team during lead optimization related activities such as docking and scoring of the molecules from rational drug design;
• Apply or develop new tools or data-mining techniques for integrative analysis and visualization of large data sets;
• Participate in data governance objectives working closely with IT and the laboratory teams;
• Provide transparency and regular communication on project status, potential roadblocks for execution, and new strategies with Drug Discovery Chemistry leadership;
• Ensure project activities align with Eurofins policies, procedures and methodologies;
• Demonstrate and promote the company vision;
• Maintain regular attendance and punctuality;
• Conduct all activities in a safe and efficient manner;
• Perform other duties as assigned;
• Own accountability and responsibility for delivering to client needs and timeliness;
• Provide cross-functional support to other departments as required;
• Adjust work hours as needed to meet client deadlines;
• Adhere to site or remote environmental health and safety (EHS) requirements

Qualifications

• Proven track record of impact in drug discovery projects (e.g., contribution to lead identification/optimization, progression of compounds into development);
• Strong understanding of medicinal chemistry principles and the ability to translate computational insights into actionable design hypotheses;
• Experience with ligand-based design approaches (e.g., QSAR, similarity searching, conformational analysis);
• Knowledge of free energy methods (e.g., FEP, MM-GBSA) and their practical application/limitations;
• Experience handling and curating large chemical and biological datasets (data quality, standardization, reproducibility);
• Familiarity with modern AI/ML approaches in drug discovery (e.g., deep learning, generative models) and their appropriate use cases;
• Ability to design, validate, and benchmark computational workflows rather than only applying existing protocols;
• Strong statistical thinking and understanding of uncertainty, validation strategies, and model performance metrics;
• Experience working in cross-functional teams (medicinal chemistry, biology, DMPK) and communicating results to non-experts;
• Exposure to ADMET prediction tools and integration into design cycles;
• Ability to critically assess experimental data (SAR, assay variability) and integrate it into modeling efforts;
• Leadership or mentoring experience; strategic thinking in selecting and deploying computational, AI & ML approaches aligned with project goals

Additional Information

• Title depends on Years of Experience;
• Research Fellow, Computational Chemistry 8+ years;
• Track record of scientific accomplishment demonstrated by publications, patents, or presentations;

Ability And/or Skills (BMQ)

• Very good interpersonal relation skills at all levels of the organization, with capability to influence decisions and lead others to achieve results;
• Experience with projects and teams that span multiple time-zones and different cultures;
• Excellent verbal, written, analytical, and presentation communication skills, namely of design rational, key experimental results, issues and accomplishments; adept at communicating a clear vision down, up, and across, effectively aligning resources and motivating teams to achieve goals;
• Proven ability to successfully influence cross-functionally and to be sought after as a technical expert within the computational sciences applied to drug development domain;
• Responsive problem solver and proactive to take actions;
• Details oriented, analytical and investigation skills;
• Ability to multitask with organization, manage own priorities and deliverables, both independently in an the team setting;
• Strong customer focus and ability to manage (internal or external) client expectations;
• Ability to work in a complex international environment;
• Demonstrates a positive attitude, capacity for team environment, and exhibits a genuine interest in drug discovery in support of advancing human health;

Additional Preferences

• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in a research program environment and generate hypotheses from computational analysis of data that are strategically aligned with organizational goals and resources;
• A mentor and coach who brings strategic experience to drive change adoption to enable long term success for computational sciences and AI/ML approaches applied to Drug Discovery and Eurofins Discovery as a whole;

Other Factors

• Successful completion of the company’s safety program is required.
• Travels to other Eurofins facilities is required. Percentage of working time of approximately 25-50%.