The Institute of Cancer Research, London, is one of the world’s most influential cancer research institutes, with an outstanding record of achievement dating back more than 100 years. We provided the first convincing evidence that DNA damage is the basic cause of cancer, laying the foundation for the now universally accepted idea that cancer is a genetic disease. Today, The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) leads the world at isolating cancer-related genes and discovering new targeted drugs for personalised cancer treatment.
The Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, within the Division of Cancer Therapeutics, is a multidisciplinary 'bench to bedside' centre, comprising around 160 staff dedicated to the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. The Cancer Therapeutics Unit’s exciting goal is to discover high quality small molecule drug candidates and to progress these to clinical trial. All the scientific disciplines are in place to make this possible, including medicinal chemistry, biology, structural biology, assay scientists, drug metabolism and clinical specialists who focus on new molecular targets emerging from human genome and ground breaking cell biology research.
A Higher Scientific Officer position is now available in the Hit Discovery and Structural Design Team within the Unit. The team uses biochemical and biophysical assays to perform small-molecule high-throughput screening and fragment-based hit discovery, coupled with X-ray crystallography to enable structure-based drug design within the Unit. These methodologies are underpinned by state-of-the art protein expression, purification and characterisation capabilities, allowing for the generation of large quantities of high quality protein targets. The successful candidate will be involved in establishing the expression, purification and characterisation of one of our early stage drug targets, using contemporary expression systems and purification methods available within the Team. In addition, the post-holder is expected to characterise ligand and inhibitor binding to the recombinant proteins using biochemical assays and biophysical methods such as Thermal Shift Assay (TSA), Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC) and ligand-based NMR methods. The successful candidate will be an integral member of a multidisciplinary project team and will interact closely with the biologists, computational chemists, medicinal chemists and structural biologists.
Applicants must have a BSc in a biochemistry or related biological subject and in depth technical laboratory experience in protein expression and purification methodologies. Expertise in insect cell expression, assay development and/or knowledge of biophysical methods would be advantageous. The starting salary for the positions will be in the range £32,000 to £44,400 p.a. inclusive (based on previous experience). The position is currently funded for one year. Informal enquiries can be made via email to rob.vanmontfort@icr.ac.uk or rosemary.burke@icr.ac.uk. Closing date is 8 March 2020.
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