Master's or PhD Intern, Drug Discovery (Birmingham, AL)

COMPANY:

At BioCryst, we share a deep commitment to improving the lives of people living with complement-mediated and other rare diseases. For over three decades we’ve been guided by our passion for not settling for “ordinary” in our quest to develop novel medicines. We leverage our expertise in structure-guided drug design to develop first-in-class or best-in-class oral small-molecule and protein therapeutics, led by the efforts of our team of expert scientists in our Discovery Center of Excellence in Birmingham, Alabama. Our global headquarters is in Durham, North Carolina, our European headquarters is in Dublin, Ireland and our employees span the globe across sites in multiple countries. We are proud of our culture of engagement and accountability that rewards people for innovative thinking and achievement of key objectives. For more information, please visit our website at www.biocryst.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

 

SUMMER INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

The BioCryst Internship Program is your ticket to getting a head start on your career! As an intern, you will gain hands-on, real world work experience. Our internship program includes:

• 12 weeks, full time PAID work experience
• Access to state-of-the-art equipment and labs at our Discovery of Excellence Center in Birmingham, AL
• Professional development workshops and access to LinkedIn Learning
• Expand your professional network through our career connections series
• Social and volunteer activities
• Opportunities to connect with company leaders and MORE!

 

JOB SUMMARY

This is an exciting opportunity to obtain hands-on experience in a fast-growing biotech company. As a Drug Discovery intern, you will function as a fully integrated member of our medicinal chemistry drug discovery team. The experience will include developing expertise in chemical lab technique and in instrumentation for purification and characterization. Interns will contribute meaningfully to their teams through challenging assignments and have the opportunity to collaborate with other functional groups within drug discovery departments. This individual should bring energy every day and be eager to work collaboratively as we make hope a reality for patients with rare and orphan diseases. This position is for a current PhD student interested in pursuing a career in biotech.  

 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Responsible for day-to-day operation of discovery project(s).
• Perform bench chemistry targeting the application of chemistry methodology and multi-step organic synthetic sequences to synthesize a desired novel, drug-like, small organic molecules
• Conduct characterization of reaction products using various instrumentation such as LC/MS, NMR, optical rotation, and other biophysical characterization methods
• Develop a synthetic strategy, and design schemes for synthesis for target molecules.
• Design the most appropriate, economical, and feasible synthetic routes for given target molecules.
• Setup reactions and synthesize compounds for the target molecules. Analyze the purification of compounds using various purification techniques. Characterize purified compounds by interpreting spectral data.
• Plan for and independently setup experiments. Purify and characterize the synthesized compounds.
• Search chemical literature to perform day-to-day activities.
• Provide solutions to existing problems and be an active participant within the Drug Discovery team.
• Maintain proper documentation of experiments conducted.
• Submit pure characterized molecules to the company database.
• May provide technical guidance to laboratory or field personnel.
• Ensure equipment assigned is maintained and fully functional for the group without any breakdown.
• Independently plan work and ensure all lab safety rules are followed and daily work is conducted in a safe manner.
• Seek advice and input, if needed, from supervisor or other resources on complex issues.
• Participate in weekly departmental Drug Discovery team meeting.
• Collaborate with other discovery group team members to complete required tasks, including Biology, and life science groups.
• All other duties as assigned.

 

EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS

• Currently enrolled in an a