Research Associate in Chemical Biology

We are looking for a Research Associate in Chemical Biology to contribute to a translational research project funded by Kidney Research UK focussing on developing new therapeutics to alleviate innate immune complications in transplanted kidneys through preventing ischemia-reperfusion injury.

This post is to work in the based at the Molecular Sciences Research Hub within the Chemistry Department at Imperial College London. The Walport lab is a highly interdisciplinary lab that uses a wide variety of techniques, spanning from synthetic and peptide chemistry to cell biology, to study biomedically important proteins.

The project is in collaboration with the at Imperial and the and laboratories at King’s College London.

You will join a vibrant research group to develop cyclic peptide inhibitors of a protein-glycan interaction that contributes to acute kidney injury during organ transplantation through activation of complement. You will carry out novel research employing an mRNA-display-based peptide discovery platform, the RaPID system, to discover tools to modulate the interactions of secreted proteins with ischaemic kidneys. Your work will involve synthesis of glycan modified peptide libraries, library screening to identify new chemical modulators of protein-glycan interactions, optimising these tools for cellular delivery, and applying these tools in a range of structural, biochemical and cellular assays. You will work closely with researchers and clinicians at King’s College London who will test your peptides in in vivo models with a view to progressing lead peptides towards the clinic.

We are seeking a motivated and enthusiastic chemical biologist. This translational project will be multidisciplinary, involving synthetic and peptide chemistry, biophysical characterisation of peptide hits, structural biology and cell biology. We are therefore seeking someone with experience in a selection of these techniques and a willingness to learn others as dictated by the project. Experience with the development, optimisation and testing of peptide inhibitors or other chemical probes would be desirable.