Microbiologist

JR United Kingdom; Shrewsbury; On-site; GBP 28,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

Join an innovative team as a microbiologist in a prestigious project focused on women's health. You will work in a cutting-edge lab, developing assays and characterising therapeutic enzymes to combat antimicrobial resistance. Bring your expertise in microbiology and thrive in an inclusive, flexible work environment.

Benefits

Flexible working culture

Generous leave allowance

Qualifications

• Experience in culturing Biosafety Level 2 organisms.
• Conducted assays for bactericidal activity.
• Utilised plate readers for microbial growth monitoring.

Responsibilities

• Implement microbiological testing for the grant project.
• Characterise antimicrobial properties of enzymes.
• Design and conduct anaerobic co-culture experiments.

Skills

Microbial culture techniques

Experimental design

Data analysis

Education

MSc or PhD in microbiology, cell biology, molecular biology, synthetic biology

Job description

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CC Bio is an award-winning synthetic biology company, which has been a subsidiary of a clinical stage global parent company, Precisio Biotix Inc. since 2024. We are based in state-of-the-art facilities at the Imperial Translation and Innovation Hub (iHUB), West London.

At CC Bio, we discover, engineer and develop potent and specific antimicrobial enzymes for use as next generation therapeutics. By leveraging the combined power of systems biology, synthetic biology and microbiology, we are engineering this new class of efficacious enzymes to improve patient outcomes worldwide in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. We combine sophisticated and proprietary ML-based protein discovery and engineering platforms with high throughput screening capabilities, positioning us as a world leader in enzyme design.

Description of Your Role

We are seeking a motivated microbiologist to join the CC Bio team in August 2025 for a 24-month prestigious grant funded project in the Women’s Health space. This role will be within a growing team at our London-based laboratory.

You will be an integral member of the experimental team, working closely with bioinformaticians and molecular biologists to facilitate the successful outcomes of this new grant project. The grant project aims to leverage our existing enzyme discovery and engineering platform (Zeus) to develop a novel class of enzyme-based therapeutic. These enzymes are hypothesised to disrupt the growth of key obligate anaerobic pathogens.

Your time will largely be based in the wet lab, where you will help develop new microbiological assays and conduct previously developed assays to test a range of candidate proteins against an array of clinical vaginal pathobiont isolates. You will work closely with CC Bio collaborators to facilitate knowledge transfer of anaerobic microbiological techniques.

What You’ll Do in This Role

You will be responsible for implementing the microbiological testing element of our project programme. This overall responsibility will be divided into the following areas:

- You will characterise the antimicrobial properties of enzymes discovered and engineered by Zeus in a high throughput fashion. Specifically, this work will involve Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC), Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC), Minimum Biofilm Eradication Concentration (MBEC) and time kill assays of these candidates.

- You will work with our collaborators and the global team to design and conduct ex vivo and anaerobic co-culture experiments to further characterise lead enzymes in more complex systems.

- You will parse the results of these studies in a systemised fashion to support ML-guided interpretation. Your feedback will help the wider team design novel derivatives of these peptides with enhanced properties for iterative testing using design-build-test-learn cycles.

- You will be responsible for characterisation, quality control processes and maintained microbial culture of target organisms. This will include successfully establishing protocols for reproducible growth of a library of clinical candidates obtained from academic partners. Importantly, this work will involve aerobic and anaerobic culture techniques.

- You will keep excellent experimental/data records to convey project results accurately, and facilitate publication upon project completion.

Requirements

- You have at least an MSc degree, or preferably, a PhD degree in microbiology, cell biology, molecular biology, synthetic biology, or similar.

- You have routinely cultured Biosafety Level 2 organisms, preferably including anaerobic culture techniques.

- You have previously conducted standardised assays to assess bactericidal or bacteriostatic activity of small molecules, peptides or proteins.

- You have previously utilised plate readers to monitor microbial growth rates.

- You can independently curate literature and design experiments in an autonomous fashion.

Additional, But Not Essential, Skills: “Nice to Haves”

- You have previously worked in a commercial biotechnology environment.

- You have experience with automation of microbiological processes.

How You Enjoy Working

- You enjoy conceiving interesting ideas, discussing them, and then putting them into action yourself.

- You actively seek to collaborate to solve problems, and have no problem working with people who have different viewpoints and backgrounds.

- You don’t take constructive criticism personally and understand that in scientific research, the results of your work do not always represent your efforts.

- You like to work on meaningful projects, and more generally, be part of businesses which are focused on human health research.

- You will receive a fixed, competitive salary for the duration of the 24-month project. This is based upon annual full-time salary which will be commensurate with degree level/experience. The Imperial College London research salary scale is used as a comparator by the company for salary determination.

- You will be embedded in a fully equipped laboratory at the Imperial College London Translation and Innovation Hub, within a vibrant commercial and academic community.

- You will work within an organisation with a generally flexible working culture and will receive a generous leave allowance.

Our company culture is, and will always be, inclusive: we will not discriminate based upon gender identity, race, nationality, skin colour, age, disability, relationship status, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected right or status.

If this job role is a good fit for your skillset, please get in touch with [emailprotected] before June 17th, 2025 including the term “BMGF-M” in your email subject title. Don’t be discouraged from applying if your skills do not exactly align with the requirements, but you feel that you would still succeed in the role. In your application, please include your CV alongside a cover letter which outlines why you’d like to join us.