Post-doc Computer-Aided Drug Design

The Medicinal Chemistry group is seeking a postdoc to support a drug discovery project aimed at developing new enzyme inhibitors for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Post-doc Computer-Aided Drug Design

Your function

The successful candidate will develop and apply Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) methodologies to advance drug discovery projects. Their work will focus on improving the molecular understanding of ligand-protein interactions and translating these insights into the design of novel small-molecule, drug-like compounds.

The candidate will join a well-integrated, multidisciplinary team and help guide ongoing drug synthesis and biological screening activities. The results are expected to lead to publications in high-quality scientific journals and to contribute to the specific goal of developing new medicines for Alzheimer’s disease.

Your profile

• Being able to understand and predict ligand-protein interactions and translate the molecular understanding into structure-activity relationships and structure-kinetics relationships.
• Experience in fragment-based drug design and structure-based drug design and developing detailed structure-activity relationships.
• Experience in applying a wide variety of CADD techniques, including protein-structure predictions, molecular dynamics, free-energy perturbations, structural chemogenomics, machine learning, AI, etc.
• Data management expertise, cheminformatics and bioinformatics.
• Able and eager to discuss results with colleagues who perform synthesis and screening.
• Good communicative skills in writing and speaking and the ability to motivate and teach colleagues and undergraduate students.

We realize that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore we are happy to invite anyone who recognizes themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not meet all the requirements.

What do we offer?

A challenging position in a socially engaged organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world.

• A salary of minimum € 3.546,00 (Scale 10) and maximum € 5.538,00 (Scale 10) gross per month, on a full-time basis. The exact salary depends on your education and experience.
• A position for at least 0.8 FTE. Your employment contract will initially last 1 year.
• A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• Space for personal development.
• A wide range of sports facilities which staff may use at a modest charge.
• Discount on, and occasionally exclusive access to, theater performances and courses at the Griffioen Cultural Center.

About us

Faculty of Science

Researchers and students at VU Amsterdam’s Faculty of Science tackle fundamental and complex scientific problems to help pave the way for a sustainable and healthy future. Our teaching and research have a strong experimentally technical, computational and interdisciplinary nature.

Are you interested in joining the Faculty of Science? You will join undergraduate students, PhD candidates and researchers at the biggest sciences faculty in the Netherlands. We are proud of our collegial working climate, characterized by committed staff, a pragmatic attitude and engagement in the larger whole.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam stands for values-driven education and research. We are open-minded experts with the ability to think freely. By joining forces across the boundaries of disciplines, we work towards a better world for people and planet, creating a safe and respectful working and study climate, and an inspiring environment for education and research.

The start of the position is no later than September 2026.