Title: Senior Scientist, 40 hours per week – SE002.
Compensation: £45-55,000 plus equity, pension, health insurance and free lunch!
Esox Biologics is a bio-tech company ensuring food security by improving the efficiency of aquaculture. We do this by preventing the spread of infectious diseases among aquatic animals. Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector yet aquatic veterinary medicine lacks innovative tools to detect and prevent the spread of aquatic pathogens. With more than ninety percent of aquatic microorganisms uncharacterised and undescribed by science, our Detect platform harnesses metagenomics to resolve this biological dark-matter and improve pathogen detection and prevention efforts for global aquaculture.
Role: We are hiring a Senior Scientist to join our Detect team for a full-time, lab-based roll. Our Detect platform enables clients to identify total microbiomes sampled from livestock and the environment surrounding each farm. Using shotgun metagenomics to resolve aquatic microbiomes, our Detect platform is the first to offer total microbiome resolution for aquatic veterinary medicine. You’ll play a central role in developing our R&D strategy by designing and executing experiments to enhance the services we offer clients while developing robust protocols and SOPs for other team members to follow.
Backed by private equity and generating revenue through our initial products, Esox Biologics is set to establish its position within aquatic veterinary medicine sector by transforming existing knowledge of aquatic microbiomes.
Lab management: Design SOPs and workflows for implementation within our lab and establish good laboratory practices while implementing and overseeing health and safety protocols.
· Work in close collaboration with the bioinformatics team to ensure the data generated during metagenomic sequencing experiments truly represents the community of microorganisms present within samples.
· Essential – PhD in Molecular Biology, Microbiology or equivalent with two years of relevant industry experience.
· Essential – A proven track-record in designing and executing peer-reviewed molecular biology experiments.
· Essential - Strong foundation next-generation sequencing with a proven track-record of designing NGS experimental workflows and implementing protocols.
· Essential - Excellent problem-solving skills, with a capacity for creative and innovative thinking in a collaborative research and development environment.
· We are unable to sponsor visas currently.
· Desirable – Experience extracting high-molecular weight nucleic acid libraries from complex animals and environmental samples.
· Desirable – Familiarity with bioinformatics, computational biology particularly in manipulating and graphically presenting datasets.
· Desirable – An unusual passion for aquaculture, aquatic organisms, and sustainable food systems.
Must-Have: Experience with DNA/RNA extraction and purification, PCR, qPCR, molecular-cloning, next-generation sequencing on Illumina, PacBio or Oxford Nanopore platforms.
· Nice-to-Have: Familiar with designing and implementing experimental plans and protocols on Benchling software or equivalent.