PhD Studentship in Chemoinformatics
Department of Information Studies - University of Sheffield

A fully funded PhD studentship in Chemoinformatics is available to start 
in Oct 2010 in the area of computer-aided drug design. The modern drug 
discovery process seeks to identify novel, synthetically feasible 
molecules that exhibit useful biological properties while having minimal 
side-effects. This has proved to be an extremely difficult task with many 
compounds failing during late stages of the drug discovery pipeline due 
to unwanted side-effects. This project will develop new methods for the 
determining similarities between molecular fragments to identify 
bioisoteric fragments, that is, fragments which can be exchanged without 
perturbing biological activity. 

The studentship is an Industrial CASE studentship funded by EPSRC and 
AstraZeneca, Cheshire and provides an exciting opportunity to collaborate 
with a world-leading computational chemistry group including a period 
spent at AstraZeneca. EPSRC eligibility rules apply 
(http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/PostgraduateTraining/StudentEligibility.htm). 

Applicants should have, or expect to receive shortly, a good degree in 
the physical sciences. Experience of computer programming will be 
advantageous.

Candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible as this position 
will be filled as soon as a suitable candidate is found. 

Please contact Dr Richard Ward by email, who will be the industrial 
supervisor for further information and applications. 
The email address for applications is richard.a.ward(_)astrazeneca.com