Cancer Research UK-AstraZeneca Antibody Alliance Laboratory: Scientist/Senior Scientist – Protein Sciences

Location: Granta Park, Cambridge

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

Salary: £28,000 - £42,000

Closing date: Midnight 24 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 self-motivated and focussed individual with experience of drug discovery, in a Protein Science-related discipline who can help us beat cancer sooner?

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?

Generating key protein reagents related to oncology targets for the Laboratory
Troubleshooting protein expression and purification in both mammalian and non-mammalian expression systems
Using an AKTA and other automated purification platforms. As well as other analytical techniques such as SDS-PAGE, HPLC and Western blotting.
Efficiently tackling molecular biology challenges, including cloning from cDNA.
Undertaking the careful QC analysis of targets and antibody reagents for Drug Discovery
Flexibly approaching work, with the capacity to prioritise objectives according to project needs
Building excellent working relationships within a laboratory and external partners
What skills do I need?

Significant experience of how to express and purify proteins from a variety of expression hosts and vectors.
Knowledge of how best to design and build protein expression vectors to express human proteins.
Experience with aseptic technique for culturing of cell lines.
Experience of troubleshooting expression of challenging proteins.
Excellent communication skills and the ability to communicate across scientific disciplines.
Understanding of biotherapeutic candidate discovery, ideally antibodies, and the overall development process for biotherapeutic drugs.
What skills can I bring?

Understanding of biotherapeutic candidate discovery, ideally antibodies, and the overall development process for biotherapeutic drugs.
Specialised biophysical characterisation of proteins and their interactions such as circular dichromism, thermal melt curves, isothermal calorimetry and mass spectrometry
Experience of performing affinity measurements of protein-protein interactions, and knowledge of automation processes.
Knowledge of the setup and running of recombinant protein activity assays
Knowledge of the setup and running of high throughput cell-based assays
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.