DESCRIPTION

We are looking for a Senior Scientist to lead antimicrobial screening of previously uncultured microbes for novel bioactive metabolites.
Role
In this lab-based role, you will join our Compound Discovery team to coordinate our antimicrobial screening assays and lead improvements to the characterisation of compound bioactivity. This will support our vision to deliver solutions to global issues, including the discovery of new antibiotics against resistant bacteria and fungicides to support global food security.
Team
The Compound Discovery team consists of microbiologists, chemists and natural product experts who identify, isolate and characterise bioactive compounds from novel microbes. The team works closely with software engineers, data scientists, and bioinformaticians to conduct data-driven experimentation to continuously accelerate and optimise the discovery process.
Teamwork
All projects are led by individuals but supported by the entire group and discussed on a weekly basis. This model relies on people to take responsibility for their own projects, be open to discussing new ideas, and give fair and unbiased feedback. We are therefore looking for people who enjoy working in a collaborative and adaptive environment, with strong communication skills and a drive to be proactive.

• Conducting R&D and troubleshooting of our screening workflows for testing microbial extracts and pure compounds
• Designing, miniaturising and optimising primary and secondary bioassays
• Performing experiments, including sample preparation and data acquisition
• Analysing data in R/python
• Making data-driven decisions to prioritise samples entering bioassays and those that are processed downstream
• Identifying opportunities to automate the pipeline and supporting their implementation
• Coordinating containment and compliance for handling of hazard group II pathogens
• Leading quality assurance monitoring and reporting