Senior Scientist, Cryo-Electron Microscopy

CK Group are working in partnership with Nxera Pharma to recruit a Senior Scientist, Cryo-Electron Microscopy to join their Protein Sciences Group.

Location:

Granta Park, Cambridge.

About the company:

Nxera Pharma (formerly Sosei Heptares) is a technology powered biopharma company, in pursuit of new speciality medicines to improve the lives of patients with unmet needs globally. Their pipeline is focused on addressing major unmet needs in some of the fastest-growing areas of medicine across CNS, GI and immunology, metabolic disorders and rare diseases, and leverages the power of their unique and industry leading GPCR-targeted structure-based drug discovery “NxWave” platform to provide a sustainable source of best- or first-in-class candidates.

In Cambridge UK, Nxera have built outstanding capabilities across their platform, discovery and translational medicine teams, to advance multiple programs from pre-clinical through to early clinical development.

About the role:

They are now seeking an experienced cryo-electron microscopist to contribute to the structure determination efforts to enable membrane protein structure-based drug discovery.

Nxera Pharma are equipped with a ThermoFisher Glacios 200keV microscope fitted with Falcon 4i camera and purpose-built sample preparation facilities and has routine access to two Krios microscopes at the Cambridge Pharmaceutical Cryo-EM Consortium equipped with the latest cameras. This is an exciting opportunity to participate in pioneering science in an industry-leading global drug discovery company.

Responsibilities will include:

Support multiple research projects in all steps from grid preparation through to screening and data collection, processing and to model building and interpretation. Employ your extensive experience in varied data processing workflows, automated pre-processing pipelines, reconstruction of high-resolution maps, model building and validation and interpretation of structural data. Provide technical and strategic input into the cryo-EM team, driving innovation, proposing and implementing developments and establishing new techniques where appropriate.

Skills and Experience:

PhD in biochemistry/biophysics with a strong focus on cryo-EM, and a minimum of 4 additional years of cryo-EM experience.  Expert in all microscopy aspects including microscope preparation, basic maintenance and troubleshooting, screening and data acquisition. Demonstrable in-depth knowledge of diverse software packages and their application to interpret cryo-EM image data and determine structures. Experience in writing and manipulating scripts for handling and processing of cryo-EM data. Be able to provide detailed analysis of structural data and contribute to hypotheses for structure-based design. Excellent organisational and time-management skills, as well as the ability to work to deadlines. To be able to offer technical guidance and training to other team members. Have strong interpersonal skills and interact effectively with scientists across disciplines in a program centric approach to generate timely and informative structural data to project teams. Be able to communicate effectively internally and with external partners and collaborators. Experience working within a collaborative, multi-disciplinary environment, preferably in a pharmaceutical/biotech setting, with a demonstrable track record of scientific achievements and contributions.

Desirable:

Experience of using EM for structure determination of membrane proteins would be a distinct advantage.

What’s in it for you?

State-of-the-art R&D centre located in the heart of the Cambridge science cluster Competitive compensation package including discretionary cash bonuses. Eligible for grants of Restricted Stock Units. 25 days annual leave in addition to public holidays plus the option to purchase an additional 5 days each year. Employer contribution to pension. Private Medical Insurance for employees and family and a cash plan for dental and optical reimbursement. Health and wellbeing benefits including a subsidised individual gym membership. Income protection to cover long term absences due to ill health. Group Death in Service equal to 4x basic annual salary.