Senior Medicinal Chemist and Scientific Project Manager

Senior Medicinal Chemist and Scientific Project Manager

Job ID: req2678
Employee Type: exempt full-time
Division: Applied & Development Research Program
Facility: Frederick: Ft Detrick
Location: PO Box B, Frederick, MD 21702 USA

The Frederick National Laboratory is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and operated by Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc.  The lab addresses some of the most urgent and intractable problems in the biomedical sciences in cancer and AIDS, drug development and first-in-human clinical trials, applications of nanotechnology in medicine, and rapid response to emerging threats of infectious diseases.

Accountability, Compassion, Collaboration, Dedication, Integrity and Versatility; it's the FNL way.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNL) is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and operated by the prime contractor Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc. FNL is responsible for pursuing a unique mission in translational and applied biomedical research that is unsuitable for academia, the pharmaceutical industry, or other federal contractors.  This open position is ideally suited for a scientist who is interested in applied Research & Development. The selected candidate will join the NExT CBC support group.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) established the Chemical Biology Consortium (CBC) as the drug discovery engine of the NCI Experimental Therapeutics (NExT) Program (https://next.cancer.gov). Working on oncology-focused drug discovery projects, the CBC helps translate promising scientific discoveries into tomorrow’s anticancer therapeutics. The Consortium is composed of public and private institutions; large and small; and academic and for-profit. Together, the CBC provides the essential expertise, scientific knowledge, skills, and technical capabilities that are required to find hits, advance hits to leads and optimize leads into a clinical candidate.

Participation on NExT discovery projects by CBC Centers is carried out under subcontract agreements with Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc. (Leidos Biomed). Management and oversight of this subcontracted drug discovery research are one of the responsibilities of this position.

KEY ROLES/RESPONSIBILITIES

• Facilitate progress of NExT CBC drug discovery projects through scientific participation and oversight of CBC subcontractors
• Contribute to project teams through scientific engagement and participation at team meetings
• Perform oversight of CBC Centers, and other subcontractors, working on drug discovery project teams
• Communicate with CBC Centers about NExT CBC operations, including contractual and reporting requirements
• Interact with other scientists and provide additional insights or expertise, as needed, to help project teams overcome technical hurdles
• Establish new projects, including preparation of scientific plans in consultation with NCI, and solicitation / evaluation of proposals from CBC Centers
• Monitor budgets and review expenditures reported in invoices
• Coordinate with the Research Subcontracts Department to manage contractual agreements with CBC Center
• Assist project teams with preparation of reports and presentations
• Collect and review subcontract deliverables (e.g., project reports, assay results, synthesized compounds, etc.)

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

To be considered for this position, you must minimally meet the knowledge, skills, and abilities listed below:

•  Possession of a PhD degree in chemistry from an accredited college or university (according to CHEA). Foreign degrees will be evaluated for U.S. equivalency.
• In addition to education requirements, a minimum of five (5) years work experience in a drug discovery project team environment, preferably in the pharmaceutical or biotech industry
• Expertise in medicinal chemistry, including extensive knowledge of organic synthesis and fundamental principles used to develop structure-activity and structure-property relationships for advancing hits to leads
• Skilled in assessing and modulating physicochemical properties of compounds for lead optimization
• A comprehensive understanding of the small molecule drug discovery process, from assay development and screening through late-stage optimization and candidate selection
• Experience with structure-based drug design principles and associated modeling tools
• Familiarity with relational database and data surfacing and analysis tools (e.g., Spotfire, D360, Dotmatics, CDD Vault)
• Demonstrated ability to interact constructively with other drug discovery scientists (biologists, chemists, pharmacologists, etc.) on a complex research project
• Demonstrated ability to rigorously interpret and evaluate scientific data, results, and conclusions
• Excellent oral and written communication skills

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

Candidates with these desired skills will be given preferential consideration: 

• Fifteen (15) or more years of  work experience in a drug discovery project team environment, preferably in the pharmaceutical or biotech industry
• Recognized leadership skills and abilities in a project team setting
• Understanding of project management concepts and principles and experience working with them
• Expertise with Perkin Elmer CambridgeSoft eLN (CBOE, BioAssay), Oracle relational database and Certara’s D360 scientific informatics platform
• Extensive experience with HTS hit triage, hit-to-lead, and lead optimization
• Knowledge of current approaches in targeted protein degradation
• Experience with fragment-based hit identification and optimization
• Experience with PyMol and Schrodinger Glide software
• Design of compounds for HTS libraries and evaluation
• Medicinal chemistry experience with discovery through candidate selection of oncology therapeutics
• Fundamental and applied understanding of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodymanic principles
• Experience managing teams or collaborations with participants based at different institutions and geographic locations
• Management of scientific studies conducted at remote locations, such as at contract research organizations
• Recognized scientific standing demonstrated through a record of peer-reviewed publications

Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE) | Minority/Female/Disabled/Veteran (M/F/D/V) | Drug Free Workplace (DFW)

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