Enzymatic DNA Synthesis _Protein Engineering Senior Scientist _Ref. PESS_21

The Company

Evonetix is a growing biotech company which is set to revolutionize de novo gene synthesis, as needed to facilitate the fast-growing and incredibly exciting field of synthetic biology. Our technology integrates molecular biology methods and microfluidics with a novel silicon array capable of independent control of many thousands of miniaturised reaction sites. This allows massive parallelism of the DNA synthesis process and on-chip gene assembly with integrated error removal.

Our community is a closely-knit multidisciplinary and multicultural team of biologists, physicists, chemists and engineers.

We have closed our $30M Series B funding round in 2020 and moved to a state-of-the-art facility in central Cambridge, allowing us to undertake significant recruitment to enable the development of our commercial desktop gene synthesiser.

The position

Our novel approach to DNA synthesis and assembly is set to revolutionise what is possible with a desktop gene synthesiser. We are developing an enzymatic DNA synthesis approach compatible with our platform.
We are looking for an innovative and motivated molecular biologist, biochemist or bioengineer with extensive experience in enzyme engineering and high-throughput screening assays to contribute to the development of highly efficient enzymes to incorporate our proprietary modified nucleotides.
As a member of the Biology team, you will play a key role in the plan and delivery of an experimental programme to develop a new enzymatic DNA synthesis approach and its transfer toward an integrated process onto Evonetix’s platform.
Job duties include, but are not limited to:
• design and execute protein engineering strategies to develop new enzymes for enzymatic DNA synthesis.
• design, develop and evaluate new assays for kinetic and stability characterisation of enzymes.
• adapt and optimize existing workflows and develop new approaches to screen improved enzymes.
• process transfer from early-stage research results to integrated technological development.
• written and verbal communication of plans, procedures, and results.
This is an exciting role at the cutting edge of biotechnology and synthetic biology. Your skills will complement the strengths and expertise of the biology, chemistry and engineering teams to exploit the unique features of a novel chip technology to create highly compatible enzymatic gene synthesis and assembly methodologies.

Essential skills and experience

A successful candidate must fulfil the following requirements:
• Dr. in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry or other relevant field in Biosciences.
• High-level of knowledge and hands-on experience with molecular biology, biochemistry, and enzymology, including the generation of variant libraries, assay development for high-throughput enzyme screening and characterization, ideally in an industrial environment.
• Proficiency/familiarity with computational approaches related to protein engineering.
• Proficiency/familiarity with analytical techniques needed to evaluate enzyme performance (g. capillary electrophoresis, liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, sequencing).
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to work in a fast changing and developing environment that requires continual enhancement of knowledge and skills.
• Ability to work independently but also in a large multi-disciplinary team and understand the technical constraints of all facets of the technology to effectively achieve integration of all components.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with senior management, collaborators and other personnel at all levels.
• Good organisational skills to meet challenging development milestones.
• Regular presentations of progress to management and colleagues.
• Excellent writing skills, including writing grant applications
• Understanding of product development.

Benefits

This opportunity comes with an attractive benefits package which includes a contributory pension, private medical care, life assurance as well as the opportunity to partake in the staff equity scheme.

Application Instructions: 

To apply for this position, please attach your cover letter and your CV to the URL below: https://evonetix.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=67

Application Closing Date: 
31 March 2021