We are seeking a Senior Support Scientist for Beamline I04-1, to support the MX User Programme and assist beamline developments, especially such that expand the scope of XChem fragment screening.  
 
Beamline I04-1 is part of Diamond's Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) Village, optimised for routine and high throughput cryogenic data collection.  It hosts users of the regular MX user programme, while its fast unattended queued operation crucially underpins the XChem programme.  We are looking for a crystallographer who will help the Beamline and the MX Village adapt the user programme to the rapidly evolving needs of the user community, in particular remote and unattended access.  The person will also help achieve Beamline upgrades including smaller beam sizes, improved accuracy, faster detectors, and higher beam flux, that will make it possible to screen currently problematic crystal systems such as membrane proteins or larger protein-protein complexes.  This work includes Beamline preparation for the Diamond II upgrade due in the next decade. 
 
The person will also work closely with the XChem facility, developed in partnership with the SGC-Oxford, which now routinely hosts users every week, and in 2017 measured over 35,000 crystals in academic and industrial experiments.  Through collaborations or own interests, the person will be involved in projects addressing the post-screening next bottleneck, namely converting low potency fragments into high-potency compounds leading to probes or drug leads.

• Appropriate First Degree
• Relevant Postgraduate degree (or ability to demonstrate significant relevant experience);
• Good interpersonal, communication and presentational skills;
• Ability to interact effectively and diplomatically with staff and facility users at all levels;
• Ability to design, plan, organise, and implement projects and tasks within an allotted timeframe;
• Ability and initiative to get to the heart of the problem and take it effectively through to completion;
• Strong organisational skills and methodical record keeping;
• Ability to work flexibly with occasional weekend and out-of-hours working;
• Experience of macromolecular crystallography data collection at a synchrotron;
• Experience with Windows / Linux / Unix;
• Experience in wetlab/crystallisation of proteins.
   

• Experience of Beamline instrumentation and optics;
• Experience of project management;
• Experience in Python and/or Java programming.

Job Description