Structural Bioinformatics Scientist, London

We are here to advance human health, by re-imagining drug discovery with the power and pace of artificial intelligence. The future is coming. A future enabled and enriched by the incredible power of machine learning. A future in which diseases are curtailed or cured by better and faster drug discovery.

Our values exist in service of that future. We think they’ll help us bring it closer, too. Come and be part of an interdisciplinary team driving groundbreaking innovation and play a meaningful role in contributing towards us achieving our ambitious goals, while being a part of an inspiring and collaborative culture. The world we want tomorrow is the one we’re building today. It starts with the culture at this company. It starts with you.

About Iso

Isomorphic Labs (IsoLabs) was founded in 2021 and is led by Sir Demis Hassabis. Our aim is to usher in a new era of biomedical breakthroughs and find cures for some of humanity’s devastating diseases. Our foundations are built on the success of Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold, but we didn’t stop there! We are continuing to develop and implement state-of-the-art technologies as we move towards our goal of dramatically accelerating and improving the process of designing and bringing new medicines to patients. We have built a world-leading drug design engine comprising foundational AI models that are capable of working across multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities. The company is continually innovating on model architecture and developing cutting-edge capabilities to advance rational drug design.

Your impact

You will be joining as a core member of the Structural Bioinformatics team, focused on tackling the most challenging drug discovery problems at proteome-wide scales. As a member of the Structural Bioinformatics team, you will be responsible for the application and development of applied ML methods leveraging our state-of-the-art platform to characterise and interrogate the proteome unlike ever before. The scope of work spans the study of protein folds, protein function, protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions, with the goal of designing novel therapeutics. You will design and execute on bold strategies to answer questions around druggability, selectivity, and toxicity spanning all protein classes. Structural Bioinformatics will be a multi-disciplinary team, working alongside world-class ML, Engineering, Product, and Drug Discovery teams. You will collaborate to deliver scientific expertise and strategic direction to drive the development of our platform and apply it to unsolved drug design problems.

If you are a skilled and ambitious scientist looking to take the next step in your career, joining Isomorphic Labs now will catapult you out of your comfort zone, and provide you with an amazing opportunity for personal growth and technical development.

What You Will Do

• Combine your expertise in bioinformatics/cheminformatics and structural biology with internal state-of-the-art ML models and representations to create creative solutions for the identification of novel drug targets, exploring new protein functions, selectivity, and characterising ligandability.
• Design robust in silico experiments that evaluate platform performance at proteome-wide scales.
• Work closely with the Exploratory Sciences team to explore emerging chemical biology datasets and new modalities, with the potential of converting this work into new portfolio projects.
• Collaborate both internally and with third party organisations, interacting within multidisciplinary teams to support data-driven delivery of high quality scientific solutions to complex technical problems.
• Analyse and interpret data from active drug discovery projects.
• Prepare detailed scientific proposals, presentations, and reports to support new and ongoing programs.
• Embrace and champion our culture of inclusion and continuous professional development.

Essential Skills and qualifications

• Experience developing or working with ML models and tools pertinent to drug discovery.
• Experience working with protein structures, peptides, and/or small molecule data.
• Ph.D in structural biology, bioinformatics, computational biology, chemistry, cheminformatics, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.
• Broad knowledge of the current bioinformatics, computational biology, computational chemistry, cheminformatics, and ML methods.
• Strong programming skills in Python.
• Strong analytical and creative problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.

Nice To Have

• Broad knowledge of the human proteome, including protein function, protein folds, and experimental and computational methods used to characterise proteins.
• Direct experience of working in pharma or biotech companies on drug discovery projects.
• Experience of contributing to Structure-Based Drug Design problems.
• Track record of authorship of relevant scientific literature.

Culture and values

We are guided by our shared values. It’s not about finding people who think and act in the same way. These values help to guide our work and will continue to strengthen it.

• Thoughtful: Thoughtful at Iso is about curiosity, creativity and care. It is about good people doing good, rigorous and future-making science every single day.
• Brave: Brave at Iso is about fearlessness, but it’s also about initiative and integrity. The scale of the challenge demands nothing less.
• Determined: Determined at Iso is the way we pursue our goal. It’s a confidence in our hypothesis, as well as the urgency and agility needed to deliver on it. Because disease won’t wait, so neither should we.
• Together: Together at Iso is about connection, collaboration across fields and catalytic relationships. It’s knowing that transformation is a group project, and remembering that what we’re doing will have a real impact on real people everywhere.

Creating An Extraordinary Company

We believe that to be successful we need a team with a range of skills and talents. We’re building an environment where collaboration is fundamental, learning is shared and every employee feels supported and able to thrive. We value unique experiences, knowledge, backgrounds, and perspectives, and harness these qualities to create extraordinary impact.

We are committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding) or any other basis protected by applicable law. If you have a disability or additional need that requires accommodation, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Hybrid working

It’s hugely important for us to share knowledge and build strong relationships with each other, and we find it easier to do this if we spend time together in person. This is why we follow a hybrid model, and would require you to be able to come into the office 3 days a week (currently Tuesday, Wednesday, and one other day depending on which team you’re in). If you have additional needs that would prevent you from following this hybrid approach, we’d be happy to talk through these if you’re selected for an initial screening call.

Please note that when you submit an application, your data will be processed in line with our privacy policy.