Scientist/Senior Scientist (Phage Display and Antibody Discovery)

Cancer Research UK-AstraZeneca Antibody Alliance Laboratory: Scientist/Senior Scientist – Phage display and Antibody Discovery

Location: Granta Park, Cambridge

Contract: 12-month Fixed term, Full Time (35 hours per week)

Salary: £28,000 - £42,000

Closing date: Midnight 24th January 2021. Please do not delay applying as we will be shortlisting on application.

Application process: CV and application questions via our careers page

You can find out more about the role and AstraZeneca Antibody Alliance Laboratory in our candidate pack

Are you a passionate research scientist with a background in antibody phage display or related discipline looking to develop skills in drug discovery?

In collaboration with AstraZeneca, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has established a pioneering laboratory in Cambridge. The lab deploys cutting edge technologies in order to generate candidate therapeutics, diagnostics and reagent tools. This exciting venture takes AstraZeneca’s leading discovery technologies and combine them with biological targets arising from CRUK’s extensive network of academic investigators.

Why we need you?

We are now seeking a research scientist with experience of drug discovery to play a pivotal role in the protein science function of the Alliance Laboratory. The post holder will be part of a multi-disciplinary research team focussed on identifying and characterising biotherapeutic candidates to oncology targets and driving onward development to preclinical proof of concept.

What will I be doing?

Designing and conducting phage display and associated drug discovery protocols to isolate and optimise therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.

Development and running homogeneous time resolved fluorescence assays (HTRF) to screen antibodies for target specificity in primary assays.

Using molecular biology techniques such as PCR, cloning and library construction.

Expressing scFv antibody fragments (crude and purified) in E. coli to enable their characterisation.

Conducting affinity determination and epitope binning experiments using BioLayer Interferometry (BLI; Octet).

Recording, tracking and presenting data for project team meetings and governance updates.

What skills do I need?

Experience with antibody and biologics discovery platforms, ideally over a significant time period

Experience of isolating and/or engineering antibodies across a broad range of target classes

Good understanding of screening methodologies (HTRF and cell-based) and assay applications

Experience of performing affinity measurements of protein-protein interactions (BioLayer Interferometry and SPR)

Experience of key molecular biology techniques, cloning and mutagenesis techniques

What will I gain?

Without you we wouldn’t be able to achieve our aim of seeing 3 in 4 people survive cancer by 2034. So, we want to reward you in as many ways as possible.

There’s plenty of career progression and training opportunities, through internal and external L&D.

25, days annual leave (plus bank holidays and the ability to buy up to 5 days per annum) and 1 CRUK day.

Pension (employer contributions of up to 10%), life insurance and a great benefit discount platform.

If you’re as ambitious and passionate as we are, join our collective force and enjoy an excellent career, as we save lives and add years.