Intern – Computational Biology for Antibody Design

Job Description

We are seeking an intern who recently pursued a BSc or MSc program with experience in computational structural biology and/or machine learning. You will join the “birthplace” of therapeutic proteins in Roche’s discovery unit and work on the development of novel machine-learning-based approaches for antibody design.

The objective of this project is to predict how antibodies bind their targets. Thus, you will be analyzing public and in-house data to identify characteristics of protein and antibody interactions. Based on this preliminary analysis, you will develop tailored structure-based machine learning methods to predict antibody-antigen binding affinity. Tailored machine learning architectures such as geometric GNNs will be applied for this project. 

This project plays a role in significantly accelerating the design of therapeutic antibodies. You will have the opportunity to disseminate your findings to our cross-functional project teams, contributing to Roche’s innovative research efforts.

We are looking for individuals who are:

• Creative problem solvers, quick learners, and comfortable experimenting with new approaches
• Highly productive and enjoy dealing with ambiguity and applying novel methodologies.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with the host team to evaluate potential antibody design techniques and applications.
• Develop and interpret machine learning algorithms to address selected research questions, including model selection and data preparation.
• Proactively share learnings and knowledge to support the development of the wider Roche computational community.
• Help shape the direction of machine learning and artificial intelligence within Roche.

Preferred Experience and Competencies:

• Knowledge of software development and fluency in Python.
• Understanding of machine learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Jax, TensorFlow).
• Experience with antibody informatics, protein structural modeling, and protein-protein interaction characterization. Experience in data mining methods is a plus.
• Familiarity with technologies required to undertake analyses on large data sources or with computationally intensive steps (Linux, HPC cluster computing)
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Experience implementing reproducible research practices like version control (e.g., using Git) is a plus.

Qualifications Required:

• MSc degree candidate or recent graduate in Bioinformatics, Statistics, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field with a Biology background.

Your benefits:

The possibility of accommodation in the Roche Boarding House or convenient transport connections to Munich with the Roche Shuttle

Flexible time management

2092€ salary per month for a full-time internship > 3 months

Link: https://roche.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/roche-ext/job/Penzberg/Intern—Computational-Biology-for-Antibody-Design_202505-112478-1

Reduced meal prices (-50 %) in our employee canteen

Networking with other students