Change the future with
Boehringer Ingelheim!

Discovery Research
global post-doc programme

More information

Dr. Clive R. Wood

Patron of the programme

”As a post-doc researcher at Boehringer Ingelheim, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical R&D organizations, you will have access to excellent resources and deep scientific knowledge to pursue original research and publish articles in prestigious journals.

In addition to learning from our drug discovery and development experience, you will also exploit Boehringer Ingelheim’s wide scientific relationships and partnerships, enhancing your research and building networks within and outside Boehringer Ingelheim.

At the end of the programme you will have the opportunity to compete for a transition grant to facilitate starting up your next lab.”

About Boehringer Ingelheim

With ca. 50000 employees in 103 countries, Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world’s top 20 pharmaceutical companies. Since its foundation in 1885, the family-owned company has been pursuing an ambitious goal: to research and develop innovative pharmaceuticals that improve the health and quality of life of humans and animals alike.

Our goals and convictions can be summed up in just a few words: value through innovation.

Apply now for position

These are the key principles of our post-doc programme

Drive cutting-edge science, new concepts and technologies
Enrich Boehringer Ingelheim’s innovation ecosystem with highly motivated, young fellows, who will help to build on science to develop new medicines
Train the next generation of leading scientists

Why should you apply for the post-doc programme at Boehringer Ingelheim?

You will have the opportunity to do cutting-edge science, to get published and take the next step in your career.

You will participate in a lecture/discussion series with internal and external speakers on selected topics.

You will benefit from a fully resourced and well-funded research environment.

You will receive sponsorship for attendance of relevant scientific conferences.

You will assume responsibility for research projects and leverage collaboration opportunities within Boehringer Ingelheim.

You will benefit from internal scientific exchanges in seminars.

You will work closely with an experienced mentor and will have regular access to other Boehringer Ingelheim scientists.

Advance your career!

With the post-doc programme at Boehringer Ingelheim you will be well prepared for your future career in academia or industry!

Be a member of the global Boehringer Ingelheim post-doc fellow community.

Exploit our extensive scientific relationships and partnerships, enhance your research, build networks within and outside Boehringer Ingelheim.

Present your research at external and internal meetings.

Pursue original research in one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical R&D organizations.

Learn about drug discovery and development.

Compete for a transition grant to facilitate setting up your next lab.

Upon completion of their fellowships, post-docs moving to academic positions can apply for a transition grant. The transition grant is aimed at facilitating establishment of an independent academic lab and provides an opportunity to expand on previous project work.

Educational and training programmes

Leadership, innovation & entrepreneurship

  • Discovery research
  • Business development & licensing
  • Venture fund
  • External entrepreneurship
  • Project leadership
  • Patents & IP
  • How to create a start-up

Scientific networking & career development

  • Scientific writing (Publications, grant applications)
  • Careers in life sciences (Pharma industry, academia, biotech)
  • Planning your next role (Networking, human resources, training opportunities)
  • Recruitment agencies
Post-doc programme science people Boeringer Ingelheim

Drug development path

  • Target discovery research
  • Chemistry (Computational, structural, synthetic)
  • Drug discovery support
  • Preclinical safety (Tox)
  • Translational medicine (TMCP)
  • Development
  • Project management
  • Production
  • Biopharma
  • Medicine and marketing

Discovery Research and Therapeutic Areas

Cardiometabolic diseases research

Cardiometabolic diseases research

  • NASH – fibrosis
  • Retinopathies
  • Insulin resistance
  • Central mechanisms of appetite
    control

CNS diseases research

CNS diseases research

Research focus

  • Investigating maladaptive brain
    circuitry underlying major
    untreated neuropsychiatric
    symptoms
  • Pathological underpinnings of
    circuit malfunction in
    conjunction with emerging GWAS
    data are applied to find ways
    for early intervention of
    neuropsychiatric disorders
  • Cognition focusing on episodic,
    working memory and/or cognitive
    control
  • Positive valence focusing on
    anhedonia/motivation
  • Negative valence focusing on
    loss/sustained threat

Immunology Respiratory diseases research

Immunology Respiratory diseases research

  • Mucosal barrier injury and repair
  • Aberrant tissue remodelling
  • Novel approaches to regulate innate and adaptive immune responses

Cancer research

Cancer research

Current focus on pathways acting across cancer types:

  • Restraining uncontrolled growth (receptors and intracellular signaling, e.g KRAS)
  • Correcting aberrant developmental pathways (e.g. Wnt signaling)
  • Re-establishing cell death
  • Restoring transcriptional and epigenetic control

Cancer Immunology research

Cancer Immunology research

The ability to modulate the body’s own immune system
has revealed compelling new ways to treat cancer. Our current focus areas in cancer immunology:

  • Improve T cell priming: Vaccines, oncolytic viruses,
    myeloid activation
  • Redirect T cells to the cancer cell: Tumor antigens and T-cell engagers
  • Immune activation within the tumor: Immune regulatory receptor modulators affecting T cells and myeloid cells

Immune Modulation research

Immune Modulation research

Understanding fundamental immune mechanisms to discover new treatments across our therapy areas, especially cancer, respiratory and inflammatory diseases.

  • Immune regulation and resetting: Restoring adaptive immune homeostasis and overcoming immune suppression
  • Innate immunity and immune priming: Restoring innate immune homeostasis especially focused to reversing myeloid cell suppression
  • Immune regulatory receptors; Foundational biology as a key drug target class

Research Beyond Borders

Research Beyond Borders

  • Microbiome
    Identification of novel bacteria and bacterial products, establishing their causal role in human health and disease
  • Regenerative Medicine
    New targets / approaches for the mobilisation and/or differentiation of endogenous stem cells/progenitor cells
  • Gene Therapy
    New concepts and technology enhancements for organ specific gene expression and regulation

Biotherapeutics discovery

Biotherapeutics discovery

  • Advancing methodology for in vitro and in vivo antibody discovery
  • Development of In Silico antibody discovery approaches
  • Application of computational methods to antibody optimization
  • Development of novel therapeutic modalities
  • Optimization approaches using biophysics and crystallography
  • Engineering and delivery methods to extend half-life

New Chemical Therapeutics

New Chemical Therapeutics

  • Chemical synthesis methodologies to expand what can be made
  • Emerging chemical modalities to expand the target space
  • Predictive Computational Methods to drive drug design
  • Protein Structural Biology to guide drug design
  • Novel Biophysical Technologies to expand what can be measured
  • New formulations techniques to improve drug delivery
  • Predictive PK/PD modelling to accelerate drug candidate selection
  • Target Discovery with Phenotypic/label free screen, NGS, AAV
  • Mass based Biomarker identification to improve translatability

Post-docs, Supervisors & Projects

Dr. Oana-Daniela Toader

Dr. Anastasia Zakharyuta

Dr. Aniket Magarkar

Dr. Daniel Veyel

Dr. Marina Garcia Garrido

Dr. Stefanie Schlager

Dr. Petra van der Lelij

Francesca Morreale, PhD

Dr. Catarina Pinto

Dr. Markus Schäfer

Dr. Philipp Schmalhorst

Dr. Sebastian Kupka

Dr. Ksenija Slavic Obradovic

Melanie Korntner-Vetter

Dr. Zoltán Spiró

Dr. Julia Leodolter

Dr. Martina Minnich

Dr. Olga Petrova

Dr. Michaela Willi

Dr. Quang-Huy Le

Dr. Wioletta Skronska-Wasek

Dr. Madhura Modak

Dr. Benjamin Wahl

Dr. Marzieh Funk

Dr. Alena Moiseenko

Dr. Tim Häbe

Dr. Özge Gürbüz

Dr. Roman Simon

Dr. Anna-Kaisa Rimpelä

Dr. Stephan Klee

Dr. Jonas Weinmann

Dr. Martin Rübbelke

Dr. Patrick Latuske

Dr. Di Cui

Verena Supper

Meet Stefanie Schlager and learn how her research
will make a difference to patients’ lives.

Publications

Explore the publications of our Discovery Research scientists and post-docs.

Publications Research 2018-2019 (.pdf)
Publications Post-docs 2014-2019 (.pdf)

Call for proposals

Submit proposal

Cancer Immunology

Project

Post-docs have the opportunity to perform ground-breaking discovery research in the emerging field of cancer vaccines and oncolytic viruses. Main goal is to

  • understand molecular and cellular therapeutic mode of action of selected viral platforms in the induction of anti-tumor responses against immunologically silent tumors
  • discover novel modalities to be used to arm oncolytic viruses
  • translate scientific findings to improve the existing platforms using genetic engineering or combination approaches and demonstrate therapeutic relevance in preclinical models

Post-docs in Cancer Immunology group will work closely with a successful drug discovery mentor who has more than 20 years of research experience in both academia and industry (Cornell, Genentech, Boehringer Ingelheim).

Identification of Novel Tumor-Restricted Target Antigens

Project

Antigens that are selectively expressed in tumors are an important pre-requisite in designing novel immunotherapy concepts. For example, such tumor antigens can be exploited by modalities such as cancer vaccines and bi-specific T-cell engagers that can be used to safely re-direct cytotoxic T-cells to the tumor antigen, reducing tumor growth whilst sparing normal tissues. However, antigens that are selectively expressed and prevalent in solid tumors are rare and approaches that can lead to their identification are an active area of cancer immunotherapy research.
Many tumor-associated antigens which can be considered tumor-restricted are localized in the cytoplasm and can only be recognized by the immune system (via the T-cell receptor (TCR) on T-cells) in the context of peptide presentation by HLA class I and II molecules. An in-house in silico bioinformatic screen for novel tumor restricted protein sequences that are predicted to be presented by HLA class I has identified a number of exciting leads that require further investigation. As such, we are looking for a Post-doctoral scientist to move these discoveries to the next step of in vitro characterization of the peptides and determine if they are unique targets presented on cancer cells.

Maladaptive Brain Circuitry

Project

Post-docs have the opportunity to perform ground breaking discovery research in the field of mental disorders, the leading cause for years lived with disability worldwide. We follow an innovative approach which recognizes mental disorders as disorders of brain circuitry in line with NIMH’s Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) concept. Specific activities include Research interests:

  • Investigating brain circuits that control elements of cognition and positive/negative valence with state of the art optogenetics and chemogenetics technologies
  • Assessing brain function by methodology with translational potential such as world-class EEG, challenge models and operant behavioral tests
  • Identifying novel therapeutic approaches that restore normal functions in brain circuits and ultimately correct behavioral deficits in patients.

Post-docs in CNS DR will work within a multidisciplinary and international team of scientists, present their work at internal and external meetings and in publications in peer-reviewed journals and have the opportunity to interact with people with different cultural and scientific background.

Early Intervention in Mental Disorders

Project

Post-docs have the opportunity to perform ground breaking discovery research in the field of mental disorders, the leading cause for years lived with disability worldwide. We integrate human genetic evidence and quantifiable pathological changes during brain maturation to identify entry points for early intervention during prodromal phases of mental disorders with a developmental component. Our approaches include

  • Investigating changes in synaptic plasticity with state of the art image analysis
  • Applying patient derived iPSCs as well as genetically modified mice to identify and probe consequences of genetic risk factors on brain development and function
  • Identifying novel therapeutic approaches that prevent conversion from prodromal states to mental disorders

Post-docs in CNS DR will work within a multidisciplinary and international team of scientists, present their work at internal and external meetings and in publications in peer-reviewed journals and have the opportunity to interact with people with different cultural and scientific background.

Become one of our post-docs.

And help us to make the world healthier!
We welcome post-doc project proposals from
highly motivated individuals with a strong scientific background.
Proposals should be relevant to Discovery Research’s focus areas.

world map
Biberach, Germany
  • Cardiometabolic Diseases Research
  • Immunology & Respiratory
  • Central Nervous System Diseases Research
  • Research Beyond Borders
  • New Chemical Entity Research
  • Cancer Immunology & Immune Modulation
Vienna, Austria
  • Cancer Research
  • Cancer Immunology & Immune Modulation
  • New Chemical Entity Research
  • Research Beyond Borders
Ridgefield, USA
  • Research Beyond Borders
  • Cancer Immunology & Immune Modulation
  • Immunology & Respiratory
  • Biologics Discovery