Senior Lecturer: Computational Medicinal Chemistry

Job Purpose

To create and disseminate knowledge at a senior level through initiating and conducting significant original research supporting and extending drug discovery and development initiatives and through developing and delivering undergraduate, postgraduate and CPD programmes, with specific focus on the 5-year MPharm initially.

Person Specification

The postholder will be able to demonstrate competence in Research, Learning and Teaching and some aspects of management and administration relevant to the School of Pharmacy and the discipline of computational medicinal chemistry.

Research requirements

The post holder will have an excellent national reputation and a developing international profile through significant original research work and a clear record of impact demonstrating evidence of success in the discipline of computational medicinal chemistry:

• High level peer esteem as evidenced by
• Excellent reputation in the UK and often internationally, reflected in sustained high quality output, level of innovation, impact on subject and recognition
• An excellent and sustained record of peer reviewed research publications
• Successful and sustained supervision of doctoral students to completion
• Substantial and sustained research income generation, e.g. through research grants, contracts, research consultancy or other external funding

The postholder will:

• have a Ph.D. in computational chemistry or a related discipline
• have a background working with medicinal chemistry and pharmacology data demonstrating understanding of medicinal organic chemistry, pharmacokinetics and metabolism relevant to drug discovery
• be an innovative computational chemist able to contribute to drug discovery programmes across the university (e.g. pharmacy, medicine, bioscience, chemistry) – from target ID to lead optimisation to drive the selection and design of molecules with the desired profile
• have knowledge of both HTS and fragment-based drug discovery in silico campaigns including ligand-based and structure-based.
• demonstrate the ability to teach undergraduate level pharmaceutical chemistry including computational drug design
• have experience of a range of computational software: Schrodinger DD suite, MOE, KNIME, Pipeline Pilot and docking software: GLIDE, GOLD, AutoDock, pharmacohore screening, ROCS

Learning and teaching requirements
The postholder will have an excellent teaching profile and performance in terms of both impact and quality. The teaching quality demonstrated to be informed by an appropriate level of scholarship.

Evidence of success will be demonstrated by:
• High national reputation for the development of teaching and learning excellence within medicinal chemistry
• Successful and sustained use of a range of appropriate teaching methods, and assessment strategies that promote high quality learning, including learning that is flexible, distinctive and current and stimulates learners’ natural curiosity
• Significant and sustained contribution to one or more of the following: strategic development of new programmes; approaches to learning; the development of learning resources
• High quality and sustained contributions to fostering excellence in teaching activities more widely, i.e. in a Pharmacy School environment and/or externally
• Track record of substantial and sustained high value impact on the enhancement of the student experience, and/or employability
• Mentoring and expert advice which develops the skills of colleagues in teaching and in fostering learning

Management and administration-related requirements

The postholder will have demonstrated significant achievements in management or administration-related activities, which may include leadership of initiatives. Evidence of success could be demonstrated in a variety of ways such as:

• Successful and sustained performance in significant administrative/managerial role (s) (e.g. exams officer)
• Significant and sustained high quality innovative contributions to the management/administration of a Department/School/College or University
• Successful and sustained contribution to the corporate life of the School/College/University, displaying willingness to contribute actively to
committees, collaborative teaching and administrative tasks