Scientist/ Senior Scientist - In vitro display platforms

CK Group are working in partnership with Avacta to recruit Scientists at various levels (Associate up to Senior Scientist) to be based at their state of the art facilities in West London on a permanent basis.

About Avacta: Avacta is a healthcaregroup developing innovative cancer drugs and powerful in vitro diagnostics to improve human health and well-being. Based in White City, London, their Therapeutic division develops novel cancer therapies using its two proprietary platforms – Affimer®biotherapeutics and pre|CISIONTM tumour targeted chemotherapy.

Avacta’s proprietary pre|CISIONTM targeted chemotherapy platform, releases active drug in the tumour, thereby reducing systemic exposure and improving the overall safety and therapeutic potential of these powerful anti-cancer treatments. Avacta took its first pre|CISIONTM drug candidate (AVA6000), a targeted form of the standard-of-care Doxorubicin, into the clinic in 2021. The Company recently announced the successful completionof the fourth dose escalation in AVA6000’s Phase 1a clinical study. The Affimer® platform is a novel class of biotherapeutic based on a naturally occurring human protein. It is Avacta’s proprietary therapeutic platform with its intellectual propertycovered by several patent families. Using the Affimer® platform Avacta is focusing on immunotherapies in the fight against cancer.

Innovation and collaboration is key for Avacta, and they are looking to expand the team with people who can furtherdrive our exciting programmes forward.

The Role:

The candidate will be responsible for developing and executing strategies and experimental work. They will deliver drug hits from library screens for further analysis. The candidate will performa wide range of techniques, for which training will be given, to support delivery of drug discovery campaigns.

Responsibilities will include to:

• Maintain expertise I their subject area, developing new approaches to support library screeningas well as protein production and cell-based assays.
• Ability to work independently and communicate effectively across disciplines.
• Collaborate with external partners and present work at both internal meetings and to external collaborating partners.
• Work will be within multi-disciplinary teams: flexibility to work on multiple programmes and different functional activities and resilience to move between these are key.
• The candidate must work effectively within a team and possess good inter-personal, communication and presentation skills.

Your Background:

• PhD or equivalent with several years relevant lab-based experience.
• Experience in conducting phage display selections is central to the role. Experience in sequenceanalysis, high throughput cloning strategies and protein production is also key. The role requires providing innovative solutions to trouble-shoot and optimise procedures.
• Knowledge of alternative scaffolds, multi-specific antibodies and fusion proteins is valuable, as is knowledge of structural biology.
• Experience of Akta purification and hplc analysis, thermostability studies, as well as Biacore or Octet is valuable. Experience in flow cytometry including high throughput iQue analysis, Mirrorball and classic cytometry systems is of benefit.
• Good communication across the organisation and ability to work in a team environment.
• Experience in oncology drug development and related procedures is an advantage.

The benefits:

• 25Days annual leave in addition to bank holidays, increases with length of service
• Lunch allowance for days when working on-site in White City
• Private medical
• Annual performance related bonus
• Share options
• Eye Care Scheme
• Cycle to work Scheme
• Life assurance, 2x annual salary death in service benefit
• Pension

Apply: It is essential that applicants hold entitlement to work in the UK. Please quote job reference 55029 in all correspondence.