Computational Biochemist in Cheshire, Warrington

Lanthagen Bio is a biotech startup building biotechnologies for selective metal binding and recovery from various waste streams, such as electronic waste. We are looking for a Computational Biochemist in a highly strategic role to design and run high throughput docking and molecular dynamics (MD) workflows for peptide and protein metal systems, including f-block elements.

This is a hands-on role with strategic input, close interaction with the wet lab team, and direct impact on experimental design and IP generation.

Salary: £42,000 per annum (Year 1), within a salary band of £42,000-£46,000, with progression subject to annual SPRIN-D project continuation and performance review.

Location: Hybrid/Remote, Citi Labs 4, Manchester. Role can be largely home based with occasional office-based work.

Working Hours: Full time; Monday-Thursday. This role is a fixed four-day working week, with regular daily hours (9.30-4). It is not a compressed-hours role and is designed to support accessible working patterns, increase productivity, and promote work life balance.

What You Will Do

• Build and operate high throughput docking workflows for peptide and protein metal binding.
• Run and optimise MD simulations to refine binding geometries and assess stability and selectivity.
• Drive model-informed prioritisation by integrating docking, MD, and eventually QM validation to define selection rules, confidence thresholds, and programme-level go/no-go criteria.
• Develop custom force field and parameterisation approaches for non-standard metals outlined in the UK government critical strategy 2025.
• Automate and scale workflows on HPC and GPU systems.
• Translate modelling outputs to wet lab team for high throughput testing.

Required Technical Skills (Must Have)

• Strong experience with molecular docking and MD in production style workflows.
• Proven ability to model or parameterise metal coordination in biomolecular systems.
• Experience with metals beyond standard biological ions, including f-block or transition metals.
• Proficiency in Python and Linux for scientific automation.
• Experience with MD engines such as GROMACS, AMBER, OpenMM, NAMD, or CHARMM.
• Comfortable working on HPC systems and containerised environments.

Nice to Have (Desirable – these can be developed on the job)

• Experience with QM or QM MM methods (required by end of year 1).
• Enhanced sampling or free energy workflows.
• Peptide or protein design experience.
• Experience working in fast moving or early-stage biotech.
• Using lab and computational data to create denovo machine learning models for protein-metal binding predictions.

What success looks like (first 3–6 months in the job)

• An automated dock → refine → rank pipeline for metal-peptide binding, which can approximate binding affinities.
• Custom force-field/parameterisation for priority critical metals.
• Benchmarks demonstrating improved enrichment/pose stability and sensible failure-mode detection.

Interview Process

• Stage 1: Teams call to assess CV and skill fit for the role.
• Stage 2: Computational task with 72-hour completion window, present to leadership team on site.

Annual Leave

You are entitled to 20 working days paid annual leave per leave year, based on a four-day working week (equivalent to five weeks’ flexible leave) + paid leave for UK bank holidays on your normal working days/paid leave during the Company’s Christmas closure.

Benefits

• 3 months full pay maternity/paternity leave/shared parental leave.
• Fully paid volunteer day with local charity.
• Paid leave on your birthday.
• Free gym at Manchester Science Park + secure bike storage at Citi labs 4.
• £500 learning and development budget: can be used for independent online courses, conference attendance etc.

Experience needed

• PhD in Computational Biology/Chemistry or similar, with 2+ years industry experience in computational biochemistry of metalloproteins, including f-block metals. Candidates with first author publications in this area will also be considered.
• MSc in Computational Biology/Chemistry with 3-5 years relevant industry experience will also be considered.

Additional

This role is funded as part of the SPRIN-D Tech Metal Challenge for 12 months initially, with continuation based on satisfactory performance and progression to year 2 of the challenge.

Equalities and Values Statement

Lanthagen Bio is committed to an inclusive, respectful, and safe workplace. We do not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or exclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, religion or belief, age, or any other characteristic protected under UK law.

We respect that individuals may hold a wide range of personal, cultural, religious, or philosophical beliefs. However, all employees are expected to act professionally and respectfully at work. Behaviour that creates a hostile, intimidating, or exclusionary environment is not acceptable, regardless of personal belief or intent.

These expectations apply to all work-related interactions, including communications, meetings, and events. Lanthagen Bio complies fully with the Equality Act 2010 and relevant UK employment law.