About the role
The mission of the CRUK National Biomarker Centre (NBC) is to discover, develop, validate and qualify biomarkers that support optimised treatment of patients with cancer. An exciting opportunity exists to become the Deputy Team Lead of the NBC Preclinical Pharmacology (PP) Team. We seek an innovative and accomplished translational scientist with significant post-doctoral experience in cancer therapeutics and biomarker development to strategically develop our portfolio of preclinical cancer models and ex vivo approaches.
Your goal is to enhance our mission to validate and credential new drug targets, to determine therapeutic efficacy, toxicity and resistance mechanisms and to discover and develop predictive, pharmacodynamic and response-monitoring biomarkers. You will have expertise in preclinical models of cancer (patient-derived and immune-competent models) and be well-versed in drug efficacy and resistance studies. You will bring innovative ideas and have expertise in a range of ex vivo protocols to interrogate drug mechanisms and cellular impacts of drug/target interactions. You will work closely with the PP Team Lead, influencing the strategic direction and oversee day-to-day operational aspects of the PP Team’s research with line management responsibilities. You will be an effective networker, engaging collaborators in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industry and will drive and contribute to grant submissions and publication outputs. You will relish the opportunity to interact with the other biomarker teams in the NBC (https://cruknbc.org/), to collaborate with investigators at the CRUK Manchester Institute and will maximise the location of the NBC within the Manchester Cancer Research Centre.
About youYou should have a PhD in Biological Sciences, ideally in cancer pharmacology or cancer biology and/or a related discipline. You will possess comprehensive knowledge of personalised cancer medicines and will have experience in designing and running both in vitro and in vivo preclinical cancer therapeutics studies. You will have experience in management of integrated multidisciplinary project teams and an ability to effectively communicate between different specialists. This role is the perfect opportunity for an ambitious, collaborative and self-motivated individual looking to accelerate the success of the PP team with independent ideas and contribute to its strategic direction within the NBC mission.
What you will get in return:
• Fantastic market leading Pension scheme
• Excellent employee health and wellbeing services including an Employee Assistance Programme
• Exceptional starting annual leave entitlement, plus bank holidays
• Local and national discounts at a range of major retailers
Why choose Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre?
We are a leading and highly specialised translational research centre within The University of Manchester (www.manchester.ac.uk), aligned with the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute (www.cruk.manchester.ac.uk), and core-funded by Cancer Research UK (www.cancerresearchuk.org), the largest independent cancer research organisation in the world. In spring 2023 the Institute moved into the state-of-the-art Paterson Building, a £150 million flagship purpose-built biomedical research centre directly attached to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in South Manchester (www.christie.nhs.uk), one of the largest cancer treatment centres in Europe. These factors combine to provide an exceptional environment in which to pursue basic, translational and clinical research programmes.
Our Centre discovers, develops, validates and qualifies biomarkers in clinical studies and trials that detect cancer earlier and predict and monitor therapy responses to support optimised treatment of patients with cancer. Our advanced research programmes, agnostic to cancer type, develop biomarkers in tissue and less invasive clinical samples such as blood (liquid biopsy) with sophisticated bioinformatic and artificial intelligence solutions for multi-modal laboratory and clinical biomarker data analysis and interpretation. As a bridge between discovery science and clinical research, we are highly collaborative across Manchester, nationally and internationally.
For job description, further particulars and to apply visit JobMarker
For any informal enquiries about this post, please contact NBC Director Prof Caroline Dive, Email: caroline.dive@cruk.manchester.ac.uk and PP Team Lead Dr Kathryn Simpson, Email: Kathryn.simpson@cruk.manchester.ac.uk.
Please note this vacancy will close for applications at 18:00 on the closing date specified.
