Technical Lead - Enzymatic Gene Synthesis

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 novel molecular biology methods and microfluidics with a novel silicon array capable of the independent control of many thousands of miniaturized 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 just closed our $30M Series B funding round and recently 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 gene synthesis and assembly is set to revolutionise what is possible with a desktop gene synthesiser. Our platform is compatible with both chemical and enzymatic DNA synthesis. We are looking for an experienced Technical Lead to join the Biology team and take responsibility for the enzymatic gene synthesis project.

You will work with the Director of Biology to plan and deliver 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:

provide technical and programmatic leadership of a multidisciplinary team (including biologists, chemists and engineers), setting strategic direction and facilitating communication
provide hands-on guidance in protein engineering strategies to develop new enzymes for enzymatic DNA synthesis
process transfer from early-stage research to integrated product development
write grant applications and manage publicly funded projects

This is a unique opportunity to take a leading role in the development of a third-generation gene synthesis platform.

Essential skills and experience

A successful candidate must fulfil the following requirements:

PhD. in Molecular Biology, Biochemical Engineering or other relevant field in Biosciences, with a minimum of 5 years of experience in protein engineering, ideally in an industrial environment
Experience of technical leadership roles within multidisciplinary teams and projects in an industrial environment
High-level of knowledge and hands-on experience with molecular biology, biochemistry, and enzymology, including the generation of variant libraries, assay development, high-throughput screening and enzyme characterization
Proficiency/familiarity with analytical techniques (capillary electrophoresis, liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry) needed to evaluate enzyme performance would be an advantage
Proficiency/familiarity with computational approaches related to protein engineering is desirable
Experience of writing grant applications and managing publicly funded projects would be advantageous
Understanding of product development would also be advantageous
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

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.