SLRS Medicinal Chemist

Location: The Francis Crick Institute, Midland Road, London

Short summary

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 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 contribute to broadening the scientific capability of the STP, identifying unmet needs in chemical biology and leading projects to address them. They will independently prosecute both laboratory-based and consultancy-based STP collaborative projects. The candidate will have a particular focus on projects involving the design, synthesis and application of small molecule based chemical tools, to address complex biological questions. The successful applicant will be an independent thinker, able to develop new protocols and methods, using cutting edge chemical tools to tackle complex biological problems.

Key Responsibilities

• Identification and evaluation of opportunities for collaboration in support of work carried out within Crick-based research groups. Working 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 (using 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.
• Flexible working across all scientific specialisms within the STP

About us

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL, Imperial College London and King’s College London.

The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016 it moved into a new state-of-the-art building in central London which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under in one building in Europe.

The Francis Crick Institute will be world-class with a strong national role. Its distinctive vision for excellence includes commitments to collaboration; developing emerging talent and exporting it the rest of the UK; public engagement; and helping turn discoveries into treatments as quickly as possible to improve lives and strengthen the economy.

• If you are interested in applying for this role, please apply via the ‘Apply’ button above.
• All offers of employment are subject to successful security screening and continuous eligibility to work in the United Kingdom.

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