Postdoc on Co-folding Models for In-Silico Drug Discovery

About the role

Johnson & Johnson is recruiting a Postdoctoral Scholar for its In Silico Discovery department within Therapeutics Discovery, based in Beerse, Belgium. The role focuses on research and development of fine-tuning strategies for co-folding models applied to structure-based drug discovery, and suits early-career scientists interested in co-folding models, structural bioinformatics and AI/ML for drug discovery.

Key responsibilities

• Design, run and analyse fine-tuning experiments for co-folding and structure-prediction models, benchmarked against internal and external baselines
• Generate, curate and manage training and validation datasets such as complex structures, MD-derived conformational ensembles and project-specific data
• Evaluate model performance with structural and task-relevant metrics and help define best practices for evaluation
• Integrate fine-tuned models into end-to-end discovery workflows, including inference, reporting and documentation
• Work closely with In Silico Discovery scientists across CADD, biologics and AI/ML teams, and contribute to internal communication and publication-ready summaries
• Take part in external collaborations and consortia, and develop professionally through training, conferences and internal meetings

Required profile

• PhD in computational chemistry, structural bioinformatics, computational biology or machine learning applied to biomolecular systems
• Strong understanding of protein structure and structure-based modelling
• Track record of scientific delivery, including peer-reviewed first-author publications and presentations at major national meetings
• Professional fluency in English; up to 10% domestic and international travel required

Required skills

• AI/ML model development, training, fine-tuning and evaluation (e.g. PyTorch)
• Experience with structural datasets and coding research workflows in Python
• Familiarity with HPC and GPU computing
• Preferred: experience with co-folding models, benchmarking ML models, protein-ligand or antibody-antigen modelling, reproducible research practices and academic-industry collaborations

What we offer

• Base pay of EUR 60,000 to EUR 96,255
• An annual bonus depending on performance, vacation days, parental leave of at least 12 weeks, bereavement and caregiver leave, well-being reimbursement and insurance plans