Human Research Facility Director
In the Crick's Gamblin S | Research Group.
Key information
Human Research Facility Director
This is a full-time permanent position reporting to the Director of Scientific Technology Platforms (STPs) on a competitive salary with benefits, based at the Crick’s world-class laboratories in central London and supported by flexible working and family-friendly policies.
About the role
We are seeking an experienced scientist and leader for the Crick’s new Human Research Facility. The successful candidate will lead this facility that will be pivotal to the Crick’s mission to understand more about how living things work, to help improve treatment, diagnosis and prevention of human disease.
We have a declared objective to drive benefits for human health through fostering interactions between laboratory scientists, clinicians and those engaged in translational research, to create a melting pot in which expertise from academic, clinical and industrial worlds converge. As the Human Research Facility Director, you will play a key scientific role by leading the team delivering our mission with broad human research translation objectives.
The Human Research Facility is a new and dedicated team to support experimental research in human systems. The team that you will lead will build the Crick’s capability and capacity for human research. It will mobilise and expand existing infrastructure, skills and the expertise required to enable Crick scientists to conduct their research with human samples, human tissue and model systems.
With your team you will integrate the multidisciplinary research of Crick scientists, which encompasses clinical science, academic and industrial partnerships, bioengineering, stem cell biology, directed differentiation, and genome engineering expertise required for the effective development of human model systems.
We recognise that this is a broad and ambitious role, so we are looking for candidates with a deep understanding of at least one of the directly relevant areas of science. In addition, you will have a strong appreciation of the adjacent areas of science and the regulatory, ethical and legal frameworks that govern human research, as well as proven leadership and management skills. We are not looking for an expert in every aspect of human research and translation science, we are looking for someone with a core expertise, excellent people skills, and the ambition and drive to lead and develop an excellent team. We will support you and your team with scientific expertise, leadership mentoring, training and personal development opportunities.
The Human Research Facility, in driving forward Crick science linked to human biology needs, will help deliver the Crick’s vision for translational medicine. The successful candidate will be a scientist and leader at the centre of our ambitious research agenda providing support to a large, and dynamic, group of Crick researchers by fostering collaborations and providing scientific and technical support.
The Director and their team will engage with clinicians, hospitals, Biomedical Research Centres, biotech, pharma and medtech companies to develop collaborative efforts between Crick scientists and clinicians, and to improve access to human samples and data. The Human Research Facility will also partner with our other scientific platforms to optimise adjacent technologies such as data management, engineering, genome editing, and automation in human models. This means that you would lead and contribute to strategic and operational planning to ensure that the human research facility is deeply integrated into the Crick’s scientific ecosystem and develops quickly to best meet scientists’ requirements.
Ultimately you will deliver and lead a unified and sustainable team, and approach to using human samples, models and data. This will enable Crick scientists to work efficiently and to best practices, ensuring high research quality and the integrity of human studies. Ensuring compliance with ethical, regulatory and legal requirements, will contribute to improving treatment, diagnosis and prevention of human disease.
Key responsibilities
Overall, the Human Research Facility Director will be responsible for a wide range of linked activities. The successful candidate will be expected to have specific experience in some but not all aspects. They will be expected to be able to coordinate and manage a team spanning a wide range of competencies.
Responsibilities include but are not limited to:
- To lead the strategic direction setting and manage a team and the day-to-day operations of the Facility, including external collaborations, ethical and regulatory compliance, pluripotent stem cell services, genetic modification and viral vector services as well as budget management for daily operations and capital equipment investments.
- To motivate, supervise, manage and to train others to develop a team of highly engaged, competent and flexible scientists and technical experts across all of the Facility’s disciplines.
- To act as a single-point-of-contact within the Crick and with its partners for problem solving and issue escalation to ensure the efficient and compliant progression of human research projects.
- To develop partnerships and a network that facilitates access to clinical cohorts, samples, biobanks, data and repositories.
- To lead horizon scanning and scientific ideation that facilitates the use and cutting-edge development of human model systems for discovery and translation.
- To lead the application for appropriate research governance and ethics, and specifically to ensure compliance with the Human Tissue Act and to set standards and responsibilities for working with human samples dependent on context e.g. establishment of policies, standard procedures, (where relevant) working to good clinical practice (GCP), including setting the standards and responsibilities for the acquisition, processing, storage, handling and sharing of human data.
- To develop and optimise the use of complex human model and translation systems including the generation of organoids, assembloids, tissue, organ-on-a-chip, human stem cells and cell differentiation.
- To encourage knowledge exchange and skills development across research groups and other platform teams including working closely with the high content platform to co-ordinate the adoption of automation to enhance quality, repeatability, reliability and laboratory efficiency in human research.
- To ensure a robust approach to data and sample storage and processing of identifiable, sensitive and/or deep phenotypic clinical metadata generated from human studies and to set the standards and responsibilities for the acquisition, processing, storage, handling and sharing of human data including providing guidance to researchers for the use and handling of human data generated by collaborators and data from repositories/public domain data.
- To provide sample handling, sample annotation and sample storage, utilising IT solutions for integration into clinical systems to track samples, monitor outcomes, report assays, track as well as other process tools to track and report on hub performance metrics to enable problem solving and platform improvements and development.
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 qualifications, experience and competencies
- PhD in molecular biology, cell biology, genetics or related discipline or other equivalent experience such as a degree in Medicine followed by a strong career in a clinical research environment with the ability to demonstrate senior management and leadership capability and skills.
- Deep experience and/or knowledge of at least one of: clinical science, academic and industrial partnerships for clinical translation or human research, bioengineering, stem cell biology, directed cell differentiation, genome engineering - as would be required for the effective development of human model systems and translational research.
- A strong appreciation of the adjacent areas of science and the regulatory, ethical and legal frameworks that govern human research.
- User centric approach in service delivery, with the ability to identify and understand different users’ needs, and to reflect those in adjustments to operations and the development of strategy, scientific horizon scanning and capability improvements.
- Ability to develop processes and procedures compliant with ethics, legislation and best practice and to provide guidance to the team, wider Crick community and external collaborators such that compliance is encouraged and facilitated.
- Experience leading line or matrix teams with a strong reputation of inspiring and motivating high performance, and for developing others.
- Experience of developing long-term strategic plans and objectives, including budget management and investment plans for capabilities, staff and equipment, and ability to adopt and leverage rapidly advancing, new technologies to promote strategic aims.
- Proven ability to build relationships and to collaborate effectively with research groups and leaders in a range of academic or clinical or industrial settings as well as the ability to communicate well with colleagues at different levels, being able to engage meaningfully with both scientific community and operational staff.