Postdoctoral Fellow - Chemoinfomatics and Metabolomics

About the team/job

EMBL is Europe’s flagship laboratory for the life sciences – an intergovernmental organisation with more than 110 independent research groups and service teams covering the spectrum of molecular biology. It operates across six sites in Heidelberg (headquarters), Barcelona, Cambridge, Grenoble, Hamburg and Rome. Our mission is to perform basic research in molecular biology; train scientists, students and visitors at all levels; offer vital services to scientists in the public and private sectors within the member states; develop new instruments and methods; and engage actively in technology transfer. 

The Zimmermann group at EMBL Heidelberg is seeking a postdoc with a chemoinformatic/metabolomics background to work on a collaborative project with an industry partner to better understand microbiome drug metabolism. 

Your role

Develop analysis strategies to mine large-scale metabolomics data in the context of microbiota drug metabolism and apply chemoinformatics approaches to interpret drug biotransformation patterns. Get involved in experimental design of experiments and the validation of computational predictions of microbiota-drug interactions. 

You have

• PhD in Chemoinformatics, Computational Biology, or Metabolomics.
• Strong coding skills in one of either, C, Python or R.
• Confidence in working via command line.
• Familiarity with working with large datasets, high throughput metabolomics or similar.
• Be able to work independently, reliable and enjoy working in an international team within a highly collaborative atmosphere.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, a high level of motivation and fluency in English are required.
• Have an interest in a collaborative project with an industrial partner. 

You might also have

• Expertise in using RDKit or similar chemoinformatics software packages. Experience in drug discovery and development.
• Knowledge in machine learning approaches.
• Expertise in bioinformatics.
• Familiarity with either conda environment management system or with Docker/Singularity containers
• Familiarity with HPC computing and job scripting
• Exposure to wet lab work, e.g. mass spectrometry, microbiology, biochemistry. 

Why join us

EMBL is curiosity-driven, community-oriented and international. As an inclusive, equal opportunity employer, we believe that diversity enables us to collaborate more effectively and be innovative in our approaches. We are, therefore, committed to creating an inclusive and flexible culture - one where everyone can realise their full potential and make a positive contribution to our organisation. We encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing team – we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and personal experiences reflect the diversity of the populations that our science serves.

We actively encourage applications from all genders and cultures, ethnic groups and all demographics to help us avoid perpetuating biases and oversights at this transformational point in our people strategy. EMBL offers attractive conditions and benefits appropriate to an international research organisation with a very collegial and family-friendly working environment. Competitive salary and social security benefits, financial support for relocation, a relaxed culture, professional development, an on-site nursery, canteen and other staff facilities make EMBL a great place to work.

EMBL is a signatory of DORA. Find out how we implement best practices in research assessment in our recruitment processes here

What else you need to know

We are Europe’s flagship research laboratory for the life sciences – an intergovernmental organisation performing scientific research in disciplines including molecular biology, physics, chemistry and computer science. We are an international, innovative and interdisciplinary laboratory with more than 1900 employees from many nations, operating across six sites, in Heidelberg (HQ), Barcelona, Hinxton near Cambridge, Hamburg, Grenoble and Rome.

Our mission is to offer vital services in training scientists, students and visitors at all levels; to develop new instruments and methods in the life sciences and actively engage in technology transfer activities, and to integrate European life science research. The working language of the institute is English. The initial contract is for a period of two years with the possibility of a fixed-term extension.

EMBL is a signatory of DORA. Find out how we implement best practices in research assessment in our recruitment processes here.

Please apply by clicking the 'Apply' button.