Institute of Cancer Research, London, is one of the world’s most influential cancer research institutes, with an outstanding record of achievement dating back more than 100 years. We provided the first convincing evidence that DNA damage is the basic cause of cancer, laying the foundation for the now universally accepted idea that cancer is a genetic disease. Today, The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) leads the world at isolating cancer-related genes and discovering new targeted drugs for personalised cancer treatment. Under the leadership of our Chief Executive, Professor Paul Workman FMedSci, the ICR is ranked as the UK’s leading academic research centre. Together with our partner The Royal Marsden, we are rated in the top four cancer centres globally. The ICR is committed to attracting, developing and retaining the best minds in the world to join us in our mission – to make the discoveries that defeat cancer.

The Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, within the Division of Cancer Therapeutics, is a multidisciplinary 'bench to bedside' centre, comprising around 160 staff dedicated to the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. The Cancer Therapeutics Unit’s exciting goal is to discover high quality drug candidates for validated biological targets and to progress these candidates to clinical trial. All the scientific disciplines are in place to make this possible. Our biologists work alongside world-class chemists and drug metabolism specialists focusing on new molecular targets emerging from human genome and ground breaking cell biology research. This is an exciting and fast moving area of cancer research, and offers the opportunity to work within a multi-disciplinary environment using state-of-the-art techniques and equipment.

A postdoctoral position is available in Dr Rob van Montfort’s Hit Discovery and Structural Design Team within the CTU. The Post-doc will be involved in high-throughput X-ray crystallography, fragment-based screening and structure-based drug design and will be responsible for crystallisation, structure determination and structural analysis of protein-ligand complexes from one or more of the CTU’s drug discovery programmes. The successful candidate will also be part of the Division of Structural Biology, in which the crystallographers in Dr van Montfort’s team are embedded, and will have access to state of the art crystallisation facilities, in-house X-ray sources and excellent access to synchrotrons. The successful candidate will interact closely with the biology, computational chemistry and medicinal chemistry teams at the CTU, and will therefore be expected to work across the two sites in Chelsea, London and Sutton, Surrey.

Applicants must have a PhD in a biological or physical science, and experience in macromolecular crystallography (to include protein biochemistry, protein crystallisation, and protein crystallography). Experience in molecular biology, structure-based drug design, and/or biophysics will be an advantage.

Appointment will be to a Postdoctoral Training Fellowship with starting salary in the range of £33,110 to £36,858 p.a. inclusive (based on previous experience). Appointment will be for 1 year in the first instance, and benefits from a contributory defined benefit pension scheme and generous leave entitlement. Further information can be found in the full job description at www.icr.ac.uk.

Informal enquiries to rob.vanmontfort@icr.ac.uk or isaac.westwood@icr.ac.uk. Please DO NOT send your application to Dr van Montfort or Dr Westwood; CVs must be submitted via the ICR website.