Location: White City Campus
Job summary
The Department of Chemistry is seeking an outstanding chemist, wishing to develop novel chemical biology tools to interrogate DNA structural dynamics in cells, with particular interest in applying chemical modifications to validated biological tools like CRISPR-Cas9. You will be working in a highly multidisciplinary team and contribute to the research ongoing in the group developing a range of experimental approaches at both the chemical and biological level. The main duty will be to generate chemical ligands that can be used for covalent modification of CRISPR-Cas9 proteins for targeting of G4-structures.
In addition, you will be expected to submit publications to peer-reviewed journals and to attract external research funding.
Duties and responsibilities
These include:
- Plan and execute the design and the synthesis of novel small molecule ligands to target specific G4 DNA secondary structures.
- Explore biochemical and biophysical assay to validate/screen the ligands generated
- Perform basic biochemical and molecular biology experiments leveraging the knowledge already present in the group.
- Support with the supervision of undergraduate students
- Write manuscripts for publication in international peer-reviewed journals and write regular reports on the research conducted
- To identify and develop suitable techniques, and apparatus, for the collection and analysis of data
Essential requirements
These include:
- Hold, or be near completion of, a PhD in Chemistry, Chemical Biology, Biochemistry or a closely related discipline, or equivalent research, industrial or commercial experience.
- Tangible experience in synthetic organic chemistry
- Practical experience within a multidisciplinary research environment and evidence of publications in relevant refereed journals
- Experience of effective collaboration and undergraduate supervision
- Practical experience in synthetic organic chemistry, molecule design and characterisation.
- Knowledge of synthetic organic chemistry
- Knowledge of basic nucleic acids chemistry and biology
- Knowledge of chemical biology
Further information
This is a full time, fixed term position for up to 2 years. You will be based at White City Campus.
Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as a Research Assistant.
Should you require any further details on the role please contact: Dr Marco Di Antonio – [email protected]
The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/
The College believes that the use of animals in research is vital to improve human and animal health and welfare. Animals may only be used in research programmes which are ultimately aimed towards finding new treatments and making scientific and medical advances, and where there are no satisfactory or reasonably practical alternatives to their use. Imperial is committed to ensuring that, in cases where this research is deemed essential, all animals in the College’s care are treated with full respect, and that all staff involved with this work show due consideration at every level. Find out more about animal research at Imperial.