Postdoctoral researcher in antiviral drug discovery

Do you want to contribute to better health for all?

Interested in viruses and antiviral drug discovery? Whether your expertise lies in molecular biology, computational chemistry, or their intersection, we encourage you to apply. Join our newly established interdisciplinary group as a postdoctoral researcher at Karolinska Institutet and help us discover novel antivirals targeting emerging infectious diseases!

Your mission

As a postdoctoral researcher, you will join our ambitious team, a leading group in computational drug discovery with a strong focus on infectious diseases (https://luttenslab.netlify.app). The successful candidate will carry out experimental high-throughput screens, perform molecular docking calculations, and design antiviral candidates as part of the ongoing DDLS project.

You will collaborate closely with dedicated scientists across leading research infrastructures that support our work and play an active role in mentoring and training junior researchers in the lab. As part of the team, you will help implement and validate cutting-edge computational technologies developed in the lab. If you are motivated to apply your interdisciplinary skill set to the development of urgently needed antiviral therapies, we strongly encourage you to apply.

Your profile

To be eligible for employment as a postdoctoral researcher, a PhD or a foreign degree deemed to be equivalent to a Swedish PhD is required. This eligibility requirement must be fulfilled at the latest at the time of the employment decision. Completion of your doctoral degree within the last three years is considered an advantage. If there are special reasons, your degree may have been completed earlier.

In addition to this if you fulfil at least a couple of the following criteria, you are encouraged to apply. In order of decreasing importance, you should:

• Have a PhD in some area of antiviral research preferably with experimental focus.
• Have expert knowledge in biochemical and cellular assay development.
• Have extensive experience in developing small molecule inhibitors.
• Have experience in molecular docking calculations.

We value versatile backgrounds; experience with BSL-3 experimentation is considered a strong asset to our team.

The lab

The Luttens lab is part of the Research Division of Genome Biology at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institutet (KI) and is also affiliated with SciLifeLab (Science for Life Laboratory) through the SciLifeLab and Wallenberg National Program for Data-Driven Life Science (DDLS).

The lab is growing into a diverse team of chemists, biologists, and data scientists. The group benefits from strong research infrastructure at the departmental and institutional levels. The position offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to a project with clear real-world relevance and strong potential for career development both within and beyond academia.

What do we offer?

A creative and inspiring environment with wide-ranging expertise and interests. Karolinska Institutet is one of the world's leading medical universities. At Karolinska Institutet, we conduct successful medical research and hold the largest range of medical education in Sweden. At KI, you get to meet researchers working with a wide range of specialisms and methods, giving you ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with the various scientific fields within medicine and health. It is the crossover collaborations, which have pushed KI to where it is today, at the forefront of global research. Several of the people you meet in healthcare are educated at KI. A close relationship with the health care providers is important for creating groundbreaking top quality education and research. Karolinska Institutet is also a state university, which entitles you to several benefits through our collective agreement.

Location: SciLifeLab, Stockholm/Solna

Application

An employment application must contain the following documents in English or Swedish:

• PhD certificate
• A complete resumé, including date of the thesis defence, title of the thesis, previous academic positions, academic title, current position, academic distinctions, and committee work
• A complete list of publications
• A summary of current work (no more than one page)

Welcome to apply at the latest March 7, 2026

The application is to be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

Want to make a difference? Join us and contribute to better health for all!