Postdoctoral Research Associate in Computational Structural Biology

The Lab: The determination and prediction of three-dimensional protein structures is essential for revealing molecular mechanism of disease processes, and also for structure-based drug design. Concomitantly, technological advances in protein design will revolutionize therapeutic treatment. With these advances, proteins and other molecules can be designed to act on today’s undruggable proteins or tomorrow’s drug resistant diseases. The Donald Laboratory specializes in computational and experimental studies of protein structure and design. We are funded by an established-investigator NIGMS MIRA award from NIH. Our studies of protein structures, dynamics, and design methodology will illuminate targets of biochemical and pharmacological significance, and the design of new therapeutics can alleviate mortality, morbidity, and human suffering.

Our lab is distinguished by using sophisticated algorithms from computer science and mathematics to develop cutting-edge software for the design of reagents and therapeutics. Some of the most challenging and influential opportunities for Physical Geometric Algorithms (PGA) arise in developing and applying information technology to understand the molecular machinery of the cell. Recent work shows that PGA techniques may be fruitfully applied to the challenges of structural molecular biology and rational drug design. Concomitantly, a wealth of interesting computational problems arise in proposed methods for discovering new pharmaceuticals.

Position requirements: Ideal candidates should hold a PhD in the area of computer science, computational biology, applied mathematics or a related area and have experience in computational biology, structural biology, or machine learning. Programming skills in Java as well as basic knowledge in parallel computing is desirable. Experience using Osprey would be a plus.

Our team: The candidate will join a highly dynamic team of researchers that span several departments at Duke University, including Computer Science, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Engineering, and Mathematics, and others. The group emphasizes collaborative and multidisciplinary work bringing together expertise from various areas of science including computer science, mathematics, engineering and the life sciences with activities that encompass the College of Arts and Sciences, the Pratt School of Engineering, and the Duke University School of Medicine. To perform our research we have dedicated access to high-performance CPU/GPU resources. All of the software we develop is open source, and our team has an excellent record of scientific publications and job placement.

How to apply: Candidates should submit a one-page cover letter, CV, brief statement of research experience and interests, and the name of two or three references.

For more information about the laboratory: Please visit https://www.cs.duke.edu/brd/home.html and https://www.cs.duke.edu/donaldlab/

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT: Duke University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. Duke also makes good faith efforts to recruit, hire, and promote qualified women and minorities.
Duke University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

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