Scientific Officer 

• Job Ref: NBC/26/38
• Duration: 2 years fixed term
• Salary: in the range of £25,500-£38,076 per annum (dependent on experience)

The mission of the CRUK National Biomarker Centre (NBC) is to discover, develop, validate and qualify biomarkers that facilitate optimised treatment of patients with cancer and to evaluate experimental therapeutics, especially in patient derived models. 

We seek a motivated, skilled cancer cell biologist for 2 years, primarily to support an exciting collaboration with the Cancer Research Horizons Therapeutic Innovation (CRH TI) team, a subsidiary of Cancer Research UK, to develop a novel therapy in an aggressive cancer of unmet need.

About the role:

This full-time, laboratory-based role will be hosted in the NBC Preclinical Pharmacology Team and will focus on cell culture-based studies of the pharmacology of a novel therapeutic. With experienced PP and CRH TI team members, this role will deliver a pre-agreed data package to accelerate novel therapy development towards a clinical trial.     With appropriate in-house training where required, you will attend meetings on project study design and then generate pivotal drug efficacy data, interrogate mechanism of action and discover and validate predictive and pharmacodynamic biomarkers in studies using cancer cell cultured ex vivo from patient derived preclinical models. You will work with senior PP team members to deliver confidential and timely data reports to CRH TI collaborators on the project progress.

About you:

You will have a degree or equivalent in Biological Sciences or related subject (or equivalent relevant experience). You will be a team player looking for a valuable opportunity to showcase your skills. You will take pride in the high quality of the data you generate and report to agreed project milestones. You will be tenacious in problem solving with attention to data integrity and robustness. You will be excited to take on the challenge of this important project recognising the importance of the research you perform to improve outcomes for patients with cancer. 

Why choose the Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre?

We are an internationally leading, highly specialised translational research centre within The University of Manchester (www.manchester.ac.uk), aligned with the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute (www.cruk.manchester.ac.uk) and core-funded by Cancer Research UK (www.cancerresearchuk.org), the largest independent cancer research organisation in the world. We are situated in a £150 million flagship purpose-built biomedical research centre directly attached to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in South Manchester (www.christie.nhs.uk), one of the largest cancer treatment centres in Europe. These factors combine to provide an exceptional environment in which to pursue basic, translational and clinical research programmes and a perfect location for a multidisciplinary and highly collaborative Cancer Biomarker Centre.  We provide a highly specialised bridge between discovery science and clinical research and undertake a wide range of collaborative projects across Manchester, nationally and internationally.

Apply Now: 

To apply for this position please visit our website: https://apps.cruk.manchester.ac.uk/recruitment/candidate/searchvacancies 

For any informal enquiries about this post, please contact Dr Kathryn Simpson:  kathryn.simpson@cruk.manchester.ac.uk

Closing date: Wednesday 09 September 2026.

Please ensure you detail the names of two referees and ensure you submit your application before the closing date specified.

Please note this vacancy will close for applications at 18:00 hours on the closing date specified.