One postdoc in applying ML/AI to accelerate drug design

Information about the research and the project
This is a call for a postdoctoral position in the Data Science and AI division at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology.

We are recruiting a postdoctoral researcher for a project in creating a virtual laboratory for drug design, funded by WASP.

It is estimated that it costs over a billion dollar and takes more than 10 years to develop a new drug, so novel method to make drug discovery and drug development faster are urgently needed. This project is focusing on using ML/AI to speed-up drug design of novel clinical candidates. Drug candidates are optimised through a Design-Make-Test-Analyze iterative cycle starting with an initial hit and producing a clinical candidate in the end. To speed up the process a virtual laboratory will be constructued consisting of digital twins for the four individual steps. There exist already digital twins of sufficient quality for the design, make and test parts, however, for the crucial analyze part there is currently no digital twin. To achieve the goal of showing that clinical candidates can be identified faster with a virtual laboratory used in conjunction with a real laboratory, this the project has the following objectives.

Objective 1: Develop an cooperative AI for drug design based on on-going research at Aalto University. This will be the main responsibility of the postdoc employed at Aalto University.

Objective 2: Train a digital twin for drug design based historical data and knowledge elucidation from drug design experts on the cooperative AI architecture developed in objective 1.

Objective 3: Integrate the developed digital twin together with digital twins for the design-make.test steps into a virtual laboratory for drug design. Perform validation studies that a clinical candidate canbe obtained faster when a virtual laboratory is used to guide a drug design project.

The project is a collaboration among Chalmers University of Technology and Aalto university. Accordingly, although the candidatae will pursue research in machine learning within computer science and engineering at Chalmers, this person expected to have an interest in social-scientific issues and interdisciplinary research.

Major responsibilities
The main responsibility of the candidate will be to pursue research in the area of the position. The candidate will have the chance to work with the group members and collaborators at Chalmers and abroad, including the co-supervision of PhD students. The candidate is encouraged to supervise/teach up to 20% of their time.

Qualifications
Applicants must have a doctorate, PhD or equivalent degree (completed before the employment starts), in a relevant field such as computer science, bioinformatics or cheminformatics, and experience in machine learning.

The position requires sound verbal and written communication skills in English. Swedish is not a requirement.

Contract terms
This postdoc position is a full-time temporary employment. The employment is limited (temporary) for 24 months.

We offer
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the coastal city of Gothenburg. 
Read more about working at Chalmers and our benefits for employees.

Chalmers aims to actively improve our gender balance. We work broadly with equality projects, for example the GENIE Initiative on gender equality for excellence. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Read more and apply here

Application deadline: 18th September, 2022

For questions, please contact:
Ola Engkvist, CSE/DSAI olae@chalmers.se

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. *** 




The Department of Computer Science and Engineering is a joint department at Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg, with activities on two campuses in the city of Gothenburg. The department has around 270 employees from over 30 countries. Our research has a wide span, from theoretical foundations to applied systems development. We provide high quality education at Bachelor's, Master's and graduate levels, offering over 120 courses each year. We also have extensive national and international collaborations with academia, industry and society.

Our aim is to actively improve our gender balance in both our department and division. We therefore strongly encourage female applicants for our positions. As an employee at Chalmers and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, you are given the opportunity to contribute to our active work within the field of equality and diversity. We are working broadly with equality projects, for example the GENIE Initiative on gender equality for excellence. For more information, visit our website.