Post Doctoral Training Fellow - Biologist

Closing Date: 06/11/2018
Location: Sutton
Division: Cancer Therapeutics
Team: Translational Cancer Discovery
Vacancy Type: Full time
Type of Contract: Fixed Term
Length of Contract: 2 years
Hours per Week: 35
Salary Range: £35,109 - £40,409

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.

Under the leadership of our Chief Executive, Professor Paul Workman FRS, the ICR is ranked as the UK’s leading academic research centre. Together with our partner The Royal Marsden, we are rated in the top four cancer centres globally.

The ICR is committed to attracting, developing and retaining the best minds in the world to join us in our mission – to make the discoveries that defeat cancer.

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 drug candidates for validated biological targets and to progress these candidates to clinical trial. All the scientific disciplines are in place to make this possible. Our biologists work alongside world-class chemists and drug metabolism specialists focusing on new molecular targets emerging from human genome and ground breaking cell biology research. This is an exciting and fast moving area of cancer research, and offers the opportunity to work within a multi-disciplinary environment using state-of-the-art techniques and equipment.
This Unit is now under the leadership of Professor Rajesh Chopra who has previously held senior leadership positions at AstraZeneca and Celgene and academic positions in the UK in haematological oncology and stem cell transplantation.
We are seeking a highly motivated Biologist to work in our new Translational Cancer Discovery Team (led by Professor Rajesh Chopra), located in well-equipped laboratories in Sutton, South London. This is a newly created post that has arisen as a result of collaboration between the Cancer Therapeutics Unit at the ICR and a new company (founded by Professor Ian Collins and Professor Raj Chopra) established to target protein degradation. This exciting initiative is an important part of our future drug discovery strategy and is part of an exciting industrial collaboration to develop novel modulators of E3 ligases for treatment of cancers.
The successful applicant will use molecular, biochemical and cellular techniques to validate the molecular target and identify biomarkers of compounds that target a variety of difficult to drug targets such as c-MYC and RAS signalling.
In addition we are developing novel organotypic assays for cancer cells in order to undertake cancer drug screening in a physiologically relevant manner. Finally the team will develop novel approaches to modulate antigen presentation.
Candidates should possess a PhD in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology or Cell Biology, have developed a range of skills through experience in these areas and be able to work in an interdisciplinary environment towards the goal of performing cellular and biochemical assays required for pathway analysis. Knowledge of cancer research and for immunology and familiarity with contemporary approaches to drug discovery, molecular target validation is desirable. Starting salary in the region of £35,109 to £40,409 pa inclusive (based on previous experience). Appointment will be for 24 months in the first instance. Further information can be found in the full job description below. Previous applicants for this post need not apply.