Invenirex - Assay Development Scientist – Nucleic Acid Chemistry & Quantification

Job Title:

Assay Development Scientist – Nucleic Acid Chemistry & Quantification

Category:

Technical roles

Closing Date:

10/08/2025

Assay Development Scientist – Nucleic Acid Chemistry & Quantification

Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne (On-site)
Company: InvenireX Ltd
Salary: £34,920 | Contract: Permanent, full-time

This isn’t an academic role. It’s a hands-on, self-driven position where your work directly shapes a commercial product. You’ll take the lead on advancing and validating our core nucleic acid detection assays – refining our proprietary detection technology, optimising signal-to-noise performance, and pushing assay throughput to its limits on our flagship ROSALIND instrument. 

You’ll be working closely with engineers, software developers, and our CEO to shape the core functionality of the technology from bench to prototype instrument.

This role is ideal for a creative, fiercely curious, and self-motivated scientist who thrives outside conventional lines. 

Key Responsibilities

• Design, test, and optimise hybridisation-based nucleic acid assays 

• Conduct systematic experiments to determine hybridisation kinetics, melting curves, and signal linearity.

• Run end-to-end assay protocols, including sample handling, incubation, chip loading, and imaging.

• Develop and refine methods for improving performance.

• Interface closely with hardware/software teams to align assay timing, reader settings, and performance targets.

• Document protocols clearly for internal use and future regulatory readiness.

• Identify bottlenecks and propose innovative solutions for improving assay robustness and turnaround time.

• Work with early users and partners to validate real-world assay performance in diverse contexts.

What We’re Looking For

Essential Experience

• MSc, MRes, or PhD in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Bioengineering, or a related field.

• Hands-on experience developing or running DNA/RNA hybridisation assays or other nucleic acid tests (qPCR, ddPCR, LAMP, FISH, etc.).

• Comfortable handling oligonucleotides, beads, buffers, and setting up reaction protocols.

• Track record of troubleshooting experimental noise, false positives, or edge-case artefacts.

• Comfortable with quantitative analysis of assay performance (e.g., LLoD, LOQ, specificity, sensitivity, SNR).

• Able to work in a small, multidisciplinary team where every result matters.

Bonus Experience

• Experience with microfluidics, droplet assays, or femtoliter/picoliter systems.

• Prior work with diagnostic assays, biosensors, or point-of-care systems.

• Knowledge of fluorescence detection methods or single-molecule detection strategies.

• Experience scripting analysis in Python or R.

Your Profile

• You’re not just smart— you’re exceptional and you’re obsessed with figuring out how things work and making them work better.

• You have an experimentalist’s soul: methodical, inventive, persistent, and driven by real-world outcomes.

• You work from first principles and ask the questions others don’t.

• You’ve built things from scratch—kits, protocols, maybe even instruments.

• You want to be on the rocketship from the early days

• You want your work to matter—and you want to work somewhere that moves fast and demands the best.

Why Join Us?

• Be at the real cutting edge of nucleic acid detection.

• Work on a mission that could reshape diagnostics, research, and therapeutic development.

• Help build tools that turn complexity into clarity for researchers across life sciences.

• Join a team that values intellect, tenacity, and originality over pedigree.

• Collaborate with leading industrial partners. 

To Apply

Email your CV and a short note explaining what excites you about this to info@invenirex.co.uk.

We don’t care where you’ve studied. If you’ve built cool things, solved hard problems, and want your work to matter—get in touch.

InvenireX is an equal opportunity employer. We care about capability, creativity, and chemistry—not credentials.