NATA Research Scientist – Chemistry

NATA Research Scientist – Chemistry

Band 4 £32,005 – £35,143 per annum

Full time, Permanent

Harwell Campus, Oxfordshire

The closing date for applications is 12-Mar-2023

About us

The Medical Research Council (MRC), as part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has invested £30m over 4 years through the Strategic Priorities Fund to establish a nucleic acid therapy accelerator (NATA) that will support state-of-the-art interdisciplinary research to solve critical issues in nucleic acid drug development, through focused NATA research challenges and a NATA infrastructure hub.

The NATA (https://www.natahub.org/) will focus on building internal chemistry, biology and operational capabilities at the hub while catalysing collaborative R&D activity to tackle significant barriers facing oligonucleotide therapy manufacturing and delivery. This investment will support capacity building in terms of equipment, upskilling and domain expertise that will be essential in developing critical mass to catalyse and de-risk the development of next-generation nucleic acid therapeutics.

About the Role

We are recruiting for experienced Research Scientist to join the Nucleic Acid Chemistry Research & Innovation team, developing new therapeutic oligonucleotides for various translational and collaborative projects. The Research Scientist will be a key member of the NATA Chemistry Team supporting the design synthesis and development of new and novel therapeutic oligonucleotides for various translational and collaborative projects.

Key Responsibilities include:

• Designing and executing complex oligonucleotide synthetic routes in a proactive, efficient and creative manner.
• Synthesising, purifying, and analysing novel nucleosides, phorpshoramidites and oligonucleotides including implementing new techniques and methods.
• Recognise opportunities for the creation of intellectual property and cooperate in patent protection and exploitation
• Managing chemistry laboratory resources efficiently and troubleshooting procedures.
• Conducting quality control and preparing data sheets.
• Keeping excellent scientific records and implementing databases.

About You

You will have:

• PhD degree (or near to completion) in synthetic organic chemistry or related discipline.
• Extensive experience of working in a chemistry lab (academia or industry) conducting sensitive reactions (anhydrous and inert atmosphere).
• Experience with purification techniques like reverse phase, normal phase, HPLC and ion-exchange chromatography.
• Experience in characterization techniques such as LC-MS, NMR etc (including data analysis and interpretation).
• Computer Literacy; should be familiar with chemistry software like Chemdraw and Mestrenova and search tools like Scifinder.
• Experience in establishing, optimising and adopting operating procedures.

For the full job description, please click apply.

Benefits:

Choosing to come to work at the MRC (part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)) means that you will have access to a whole host of benefits, from a defined-benefit pension scheme and excellent holiday entitlement, to access to employee shopping/travel discounts and a salary sacrifice cycle to work scheme. In addition, you will have the opportunity to contribute to the work of a world-class medical research organisation.

How to Apply:

Please click apply for full details and to apply to submit an application. Your cover letter should clearly outline how you fulfil the criteria listed in the personal specification and your motivation for applying for this role.