Principal Scientist

Principal Scientist
Location: UK Biocentre, Milton Keynes
Salary: £45,000 - £60,000 dependant on experience

The Organisation
The NIHR-National Biosample Centre () was established in 2015 by the National Institute of Health Research as part of the national infrastructure to support UK biomedical sciences in the academic and commercial sector. It offers services to researchers involved in studies that collect and process samples from human subjects. These services enable existing studies to be completed more effectively and enable new studies to begin that were not previously feasible or affordable. Having established the core infrastructure, NIHR-NBC is expanding the range of services it offers to the biomedical community.

The Role
We require a talented individual to establish and develop new sample processing methods to meet the changing needs of the research community. This includes high throughput, high quality processes covering receipt, reformatting, extraction, quantification, normalisation and assay of samples within our ISO 9001:2018 accreditation and HTA license. This is an exciting role working across the interfaces of Operations, Commerical, Customer Interface and Quality. The role will involve five main areas of activity:

* Hand over developed methods to Operations ensuring that appropriate training, methods and validations are in place.
* Work closely with the Business Development Director to identify, develop, validate and cost highly efficient and responsive sample processing methods adopting manual and automated methods to balance the needs of the research community with those of UK Biocentre.
* Support the Business Development Director to establish technical requirements for new sample processes and identify the associated costs and timelines for implementation.
* Develop the requirements to achieve accreditation of the DNA pipelines to the clinical standard ISO15189 for the assay of samples involved in the clinical care pathway.
* Maintain strong links with our academic collaborators, especially at University of Cambridge.

The Person
Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, this is an exciting opportunity in a rapidly growing and developing discipline. A graduate in life-sciences with a post-graduate degree, you will have proven experience and expertise in nucleic acids and extraction chemistry, automation and laboratory informatics systems. You will have detailed knowledge of, and have worked with, quality management systems (experience of ISO-15189 or 17025 would be an advantage) and project management, ideally in an academic, NHS or commercial laboratory.

An effective communicator at all levels, you will have experience of managing and motivating a team to deliver against milestones, budgets and timelines. You will be an individual who can work independently and is proactive in the assessment and implementation of new technology. You will demonstrate a collaborative approach with key academic partners, particularly University of Cambridge.

The role will be based at Milton Keynes but with regular UK travel for collaborator meetings.

Closing date for receipt of applications is 27th April 2018.

Please click 'Apply' now to submit a covering letter and curriculum vitae. The closing date for applications is 5 on Friday 20th April 2018.