PhD Scholarship - ARC Training Centre for Fragment-Based Design - Two Positions Available!

Job No.: 626894

Employment Type: Full-time

Duration: 3-year fixed-term appointment

Location: Parkville campus

Remuneration: Monash-supported $30,000 (tax-free) or ARC scholarship $32,304 (tax-free)

About the position

The Centre for Fragment-Based Design (CFBD) is a collaboration between academic researchers at Monash University, Griffith University, and The University of Sydney that involves working closely with a range of industry partners who are developing different aspects of Fragment-Based Drug Design (FBDD). The Centre fosters close partnerships between our university and industry-based researchers to provide transformative research programs and innovative doctoral training in FBDD. A key component of this training program is that the PhD students will spend some time working across different laboratories of the academic and industry partners involved in their specific project.

The strategy of FBDD involves screening libraries of small chemical compounds or 'fragments' that, owing to their size, generally bind with relatively low affinity and then elaborating these to produce larger, higher affinity ligands (or hits). The process of fragment elaboration to generate high-affinity compounds remains one of the major challenges in FBDD. Projects in the CFBD involve research in different aspects of this process and require expertise in one or more of the following areas: medicinal chemistry, structural biology, biophysics, and/or biochemistry.

Current projects involve the development of novel antibacterial and antiviral compounds; development of novel approaches to screening “difficult” targets; development of compounds for the treatment of metabolic disease.

The successful applicants will be working in a multidisciplinary research team in the ARC Training Centre for Fragment-Based Design (CFBD), where we are working with industry partners to develop new methods for small molecule discovery.

The CFBD is supported by various industry partners including CSIRO, GE Healthcare Australia Pty Ltd, Mestrelab Research SL, Takeda California Inc., TetraGenetics Inc., VAST Bioscience Pty Ltd, Vernalis (R&D) Ltd, BioCurate Pty Ltd, FB Rice Pty Ltd, and Clarivate Analytics Ltd.

The candidate's attributes

Applications are invited from outstanding and enthusiastic graduates with a relevant background in synthetic or medicinal chemistry.

Students may be domestic or international of high scholarly calibre and will have:

• An Honours degree, Master’s degree, or equivalent with extensive experience in chemical synthesis
• Analytical thinking, data analysis and critical problem-solving skills
• Excellent time management skills and ability to work independently
• An interest in and/or experience working with industry partners
• Applicants with publications and/or industry experience will be highly regarded
• Fluency in written and oral English

Contact for further information and to apply

Informal inquiries are strongly encouraged and applications should be directed to the Centre Manager, Ms Anne Meyer, [email protected] . Please include a CV, transcripts, and cover letter.

Closing Date

Sunday 31 October 2021, 11:55pm AEDT

Supporting a diverse workforce