Senior Laboratory Research Scientist – Chemical Biology STP

Reports to: Head of Chemical Biology

This is a full time, permanent position on Crick terms and conditions of employment.

Overview

The position is within the Chemical Biology Science and Technology Platform (STP), a newly formed and expanding interdisciplinary group, at the Francis Crick Institute. The STP collaborates with researchers at the Crick to apply chemistry to explore biological questions, working at the cutting edge of biomedical science in disciplines such as cancer, infectious disease, immunology, neurology, and developmental biology. Our research focuses on the design, synthesis and application of chemical probes to explore the function and disease-relevance of proteins, pathways and phenotypes, paving the way to translating biological insights into clinical impact.

The group integrates technical expertise in small molecule and peptide synthetic chemistry, with medicinal chemistry and pharmacology, in addition to interfacing closely with the proteomics, metabolomics, structural biology and high throughput screening STPs. This enables us to develop and apply of a broad spectrum of chemical biology techniques. The group also taps into the thriving science and technology community based around London’s knowledge quarter to bring new Chemical Biology technologies to the Crick via projects with external collaborators.

Role Summary

The STP is recruiting for a creative and driven Medicinal Chemist/Chemical Biologist to expand the capability of the group, filling a unique scientific position in this recently established STP. The candidate will have the opportunity to contribute to establishing and broadening chemical biology expertise and capability at the Crick. Consequently, the successful applicant should be an independent thinker, able to develop new protocols and methods, using cutting edge chemical tools to tackle complex biological problems. The postholder will be expected to contribute to on-going laboratory-based projects, as well as identifying unmet needs in chemical biology and designing new approaches to address them.

Key responsibilities

These include but are not limited to:

• Identification of opportunities for research and collaboration, and work independently, actively and creatively to design and execute strategies to address them.
• Provision of advice and practical input on the selection, design, synthesis and application of chemical probes.
• Design and prosecution of synthetic routes to access small molecule target compounds.
• Medicinal chemistry optimisation of hits to generate high quality tool compounds (use physicochemical properties, generation and analysis of on-target SAR in biochemical and cell-based assays, selectivity profiling, structure-based design etc).
• Provision of chemistry input to target-based and phenotypic screens; library design, screening strategy and evaluation and validation of hits.
• Collaboration with other STPs and research groups to characterise target engagement and molecular mode of action of chemical tools, applying biophysical assays, crystallography, cryoEM and omics profiling.
• Training and supervision of less experienced scientists or students at the Crick and partner organisations.
• Maintenance of significant up-to-date knowledge of relevant literature, communication of key developments to other lab members and the institute, implementation of new techniques to own research.
• Continuous professional development as an active member of the scientific community by writing scientific articles, as well as presenting research findings at scientific meetings and/or conferences.
• Application of chemistry knowledge to support the Crick in pursuing translational opportunities, as and when they arise.

Key experience and competencies

The post holder should embody and demonstrate our core Crick values: Bold, Open, and Collegial, in addition to the following:

Essential:

• PhD (or equivalent experience level) in synthetic organic chemistry, chemical biology or medicinal chemistry.
• A strong track record of developing innovative solutions to chemical biology or medicinal chemistry questions in academic or industrial research, supported by publications in peer-reviewed journals.
• A deep knowledge of Medicinal Chemistry principles for the selection and design of small molecule chemical probes.
• Excellent knowledge of theoretical and practical synthetic chemistry, combined with a track record of high laboratory productivity.
• An awareness of contemporary chemical biology techniques in relation to small molecule drug discovery or tool compounds, including their application in target identification, engagement, validation and tractability.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Experience of successfully collaborating with multidisciplinary teams to deliver on research projects.
• Good time management, ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and to defined milestones.
• Experience of training and assessing competence of junior scientists.
• Learning agility, initiative and drive; demonstrated ability to quickly develop new skills and gain an understand unfamiliar scientific areas.

Desirable:

• Experience of the optimisation small molecule pharmacokinetic data and its application in the design of in vivo studies.
• Practical experience of application of chemical biology techniques for target identification and validation (e.g. activity-based probes, chemoproteomics etc).
• Supervisory experience of students or less experienced scientists.