Roche Computational Sciences Summer School 2026

In a hurry? Here is the essential information in one A4 page.

Table of Contents

• Important information in a nutshell
• Introduction
• Topic
• Application

Important information in a nutshell

• Event: Roche Computational Sciences Summer School 2026
• Date: 3rd-7th of August, 2026
• Location: Roche Innovation Center Basel, Grenzacherstrasse 124, F.Hoffmann La-Roche Ltd. In-person only, no virtual option
• Eligibility: PhD students or master’s students with exceptional qualifications and relevant backgrounds enrolled in a Swiss university are eligible to apply. Students from EU or UK universities may be considered if there are remaining positions.
• Topic: Systematic annotation of chemical probes to enhance phenotypic drug discovery
• Daily working time: 8:30-17:30 with a lunch break
• Working language: English
• Cost: Free. Insurance and accommodation is the responsibility of the participants.
• Timeline: Registration is open between June 1st (Monday) and June 21th (Sunday) 2026. The decision will be announced shortly after, before July 5th (Sunday) 2026.
• Registration: Please use this Google Form to register for Roche Computational Sciences Summer School 2026 (a Google account is required for registration).
• Contact: jitao_david.zhang (at) roche (dot) com

Introduction

Roche Computational Sciences Summer School is a one-week in-person event for PhD students to apply their domain knowledge and computational and data analysis skills to address problems in drug discovery and development. The event was previously (2022-2025) known as the Roche PMDA (Predictive Modeling and Data Analytics) Summer School.

The event includes interactive workshops (~20%), team work (~70%), and discussions and feedback (~10%). The goals are to introduce industrial research problems to PhD students, to explore novel ways to address these problems, and to make new connections among all participants.

The event is organized and sponsored by the Computational Biology and Medicine (CBM) department, part of the Computational Sciences Center of Excellence (CS CoE), F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. CBM enables drug discovery teams from target identification and assessment to Phase II/III in computational biology and medicine across disease areas, modalities and value chain. This department drives data driven decision making across the Roche and Genentech value chain. CS CoE was established in 2025 and has the vision to become Roche’s global hub for data, computation and AI shaping the future of drug discovery and development.

Topic

The topic of the Roche Computational Sciences Summer School 2026 will be Systematic annotation of chemical probes to enhance phenotypic drug discovery.

We will offer interactive workshops to introduce the background information, to collect and answer any questions, and to distribute the tasks. The participants will work in interdisciplinary teams to identify and annotate chemical probes in order to empower phenotypic drug-discovery approaches. Finally, the teams will report their learning and receive feedback. The tasks include

1. Characterization of the druggable genome and proteoform
2. Expanding Roche’s Pathway Annotated Chemical Ensemble (PACE) library with new chemical probes
3. Annotating targets and biological networks modulated by chemical probes
4. Identification of controls and expansion series for chemical probes
5. Building a knowledgebase for the chemical-probe ensemble

More details shall follow.

Application

We welcome Ph.D. students of Swiss universities with backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, computational sciences, physics, chemistry, biology, pharmacology, machine learning and AI, data science, and other relevant backgrounds to apply.

If remaining positions are available, applications from PhD students enrolled in EU or UK universities and institutes, as well as master students enrolled in Swiss, EU or UK universities with outstanding qualifications may be considered in a case-by-case manner.

The applicants are expected to bring experience in programming (ideally in R and/or Python), data analysis and modelling (for instance statistical modeling, machine learning and artificial intelligence, mechanistic modeling, or causal inference), as well as enthusiasm in applying the skills to solve real-world problems in drug discovery.

The link to register for the event can be found in Important information in a nutshell. To register, you need a Google account. During the application, you will need to submit an cover letter (one A4 page PDF file), your current CV (PDF file), and two contact persons as your reference.

Please contact jitao_david.zhang (at) roche (dot) com in case of questions.