Senior Scientist, Computational Chemistry

About the position

Septerna is a biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, CA on a mission to develop life-changing medicines for patients with the vision to become the industry-leading G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR)-focused drug discovery company. The company’s Native Complex Platform™ recapitulates GPCRs with their native structure, function, and dynamics outside of the cellular context. This approach enables novel access to modern structural and screening technologies used in industrial-scale drug discovery for the entire class of GPCRs. Septerna has an emerging pipeline of GPCR-targeted small molecule programs with potential for growth to target many GPCRs that have been undruggable and unexploited to date. We are excited to expand our multidisciplinary team of individuals focused on creating revolutionary medicines to address the unmet needs of patients. At Septerna we strive to embrace diversity of thought, expertise, and background through collaboration. To join our ambitious team, be prepared to bring your real self to work every day; grow and learn from a talented team of drug hunters, scientists, and business professionals; and contribute your passion, creativity, and energy to accomplish our mission. We share a fearless pursuit of ground-breaking innovations and cultivate an environment where our employees succeed by learning from each other and working as a team. We are committed to the development of meaningful therapeutics for patients with indications of high unmet need. This is a tremendous opportunity to work with talented individuals on the frontlines of therapeutic discovery and development. You will directly help move therapies through preclinical research, positioning them for success in the clinic. The successful candidate will add their passion, unique talents, and expertise to a dynamic team motivated to discover new disease-modifying therapeutics for patients in a fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities

• Shape the computational chemistry strategy and select tools for small molecule drug discovery.
• Optimize workflows to move from hit identification to lead optimization and candidate selection.
• Utilize in silico screening and both ligand-based and structure-based design methods.
• Collaborate closely with teams in Medicinal Chemistry, Structural Biology, and Research Informatics.
• Work with external computational experts and internal teams to develop transformative therapeutics.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in computational chemistry, chemical informatics, physical organic chemistry, biophysics, or related field.
• 2-8 years of industrial experience in small molecule drug design.
• Experience in computational chemistry drug design and optimization approaches including ligand-based and structure-based methods.
• Knowledge of in silico virtual screening towards hit identification.
• Experience in chemical informatics and modern machine learning techniques for drug discovery is a plus.
• Ability to collaborate cross-functionally with scientific colleagues.
• Outstanding communication skills and strong collaboration and organizational skills.

Nice-to-haves

• Appreciation of MD simulation and free energy perturbation calculations.
• Data analysis of chemical HTS and DEL-library screens.
• Contributions to the analysis, sharing, and visualization of all data.

Benefits

• Benefits package including stock options and annual target bonus for full-time positions.