Scientist I, Medicinal Chemistry

This role is highly collaborative and will interact daily with our data science and computational teams to support interpretation and molecular design, biology and pharmacology teams to develop assay workflows that enable in vivo translation, and platform chemistry team to push the boundaries of parallel chemistry and library synthesis. This is an opportunity to work at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and computation while contributing directly to innovative macrocyclic peptide programs and helping expand what is possible within the bRo5 drug space.

What the Role Involves

• Design, synthesize, purify, and characterize macrocyclic peptides from sub-milligram through gram scale, supporting active drug discovery programs.
• Utilize automated peptide synthesizers and UNP’s proprietary parallel synthetic platform to efficiently generate high-quality chemical matter.
• Optimize peptide synthesis, cyclization, purification, and analytical workflows to improve efficiency, reproducibility, and scalability.
• Develop and implement novel synthetic strategies to overcome challenging chemistry and enable access to new peptide scaffolds and chemical space.
• Collaborate with other medicinal chemists to interpret SAR, develop design hypotheses, and generate high-quality chemical matter.
• Contribute to CRO chemistry workflows and coordination, including communicating synthetic priorities and reviewing external results.
• Support and mentor colleagues as appropriate while contributing to a highly collaborative laboratory environment.
• Work closely with the biology, pharmacology, computational science, software, and de-novo teams to coordinate research activities and execute against project goals.
• Communicate results to internal teams and managers in the form of presentations, reports, and ad-hoc meetings or calls.
• Contribute to the continued development and optimization of UNP’s proprietary parallel synthetic platform.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Ph.D. in Chemistry or related field with 0+ years of relevant industry experience; or a M.S. in Chemistry with 7+ years of relevant industry experience.
• Strong foundations in synthetic organic chemistry and/or peptide chemistry, with demonstrated hands-on laboratory expertise.
• Proficient in purification techniques, including HPLC/flash chromatography/SPE
• Experience with analytical methods, including HPLC/LC-MS and NMR
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to clearly communicate scientific results and interpretations.
• Highly self-motivated and proactive when it comes to identifying and solving problems and helping team members
• Accountable, meticulous with attention to detail, and able to multitask
• Must be willing to work onsite, Monday-Friday, 5 days per week

Optional preferred experience

• Experience synthesizing peptide macrocycles on solid phase resin.
• Experience with peptide design, including SAR studies and scaffold optimization.
• Experience with peptide library design and synthesis, including split and pool library synthesis, and library synthesis with non-canonical amino acids.
• Experience managing, training or mentoring junior colleagues.
• Experience with complex organic synthesis, including transition metal catalysis and synthesis of non-canonical amino acids.
• Experience working with CROs or other external scientific partners.
• Experience with structure-based drug design and medicinal chemistry principles.