Senior Scientist (Sample Management)

Senior Scientist - Sample Management
£41,700-£51,300 (dependent on experience) plus benefits

Reports to: Principal Scientist, Mechanistic Pharmacology
Directorate: Research and Innovation
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time 35 hours per week (flexible working requests considered if they meet business needs)
Location: Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge. Lab Based with Low-Flex (minimum of 3 days per week on-site)
Closing date: Tuesday 21st July 23:55pm
Interview Process: 2 stage interview process: Initial screening call via MS Teams, followed by a competency-based interview on-site, with a presentation task.

Visa sponsorship: Cancer Research UK can consider visa sponsorship for this vacancy. If this applies to you, please ensure that this is clearly marked on your application.

At Cancer Research UK, we exist to beat cancer.

We have an exciting opportunity for a passionate and dedicated Senior Scientist to join Cancer Research Horizons (CRH). In this pivotal role, you will manage the delivery of high-quality sample management to support our discovery research activities, ensuring the effective storage, handling, tracking, and dispensing of compounds and biological samples. You will drive best practice and continuous improvement across our sample management processes, with a particular focus on small molecules and antibodies, helping to ensure our research teams have access to the high-quality materials they need to advance the development of new cancer treatments.

You will embed best‑practice approaches to their management and use, supporting structure-activity studies and high‑throughput screening across multiple sites. This is a hands‑on role, combining technical expertise with ownership of workflows, systems, and standards, and close collaboration with multidisciplinary teams and external partners.

You will be a key contributor to the Cancer Research Horizon Drug Discovery team, driving practical and innovative ways of working, including the adoption of new technologies and automation. Working across internal functions and with industry and academic collaborators, you will help advance novel cancer targets towards patient benefit. With access to a broad range of development opportunities, a proactive approach to learning and continuous improvement will be essential.

About Cancer Research Horizons

As the world’s biggest medical research charity, we’ve helped bring eleven new cancer drugs to market. However, there is still an urgent need to bring more effective treatments to patients faster.

We have recently developed a new approach to driving therapeutic innovation through the creation of Cancer Research Horizons (CRH). We have brought together Cancer Research UK’s established drug discovery teams under one organisation and leadership team, combining our unique pipeline of cancer biology expertise and access to CRUK’s world-class academic network, cutting edge technology platforms and clinical expertise to 1) Bring new treatments to patients faster and 2) Tackle the biggest challenges in discovering cancer drugs by seeking out more radical ideas and embracing risk in our bid to achieve success.

Based at sites in Cambridge, the CRUK Scotland Institute in Glasgow, and Newcastle University, you’ll be joining over 200 staff from both industrial and academic backgrounds, all dedicated to bringing forward the day we cure cancer.

What will you be doing?

• Drive continuous improvement of sample management practices, ensuring state-of-the-art standards in compound and biological handling and dispensing.

• Prioritise sample requests in line with project priorities and assign work to team members.

• Receive and solubilise new compounds. Assess their purity by LC-MS.

• Prepare and supply assay-ready plates with ECHO instrumentation to support structure-activity studies and high-throughput screening across multiple sites.

• Prepare and supply bespoke compound requests to support non-routine activities across active projects.

• Troubleshoot issues and respond to queries in a timely manner.

• Maintain the Mosaic sample management system, driving continuous improvement.

• Liaise with the CROs to manage off-site storage of compound libraries.

• Collaborate within the Molecular Sciences team, internal multi-disciplinary research teams, and with external partners.

What skills are we looking for?

We are seeking an accomplished scientific expert with the following skills and experience:

• An HNC, HND or degree in chemistry, biochemistry, life sciences; relevant experience may be substituted for education.

• Significant experience in a drug discovery environment of managing and dispensing small molecules and biotherapeutics.

• A detailed understanding of storage processes for compounds and biologicals (storage issues, freeze-thaw cycles, degradation, solvent usage).

• Significant experience in liquid handling and automated dispensing, such as ECHO and Access platforms.

• Experience with LIMS, databases and screening data management software, such as Mosaic and Dotmatics.

• A collaborative mindset, excellent organisation skills, attention to detail, and flexibility.

Our organisation values are designed to guide all that we do.

Bold: Act with ambition, courage and determination

Credible: Act with rigour and professionalism