Senior Purification Specialist

Chemify Ltd; Glasgow; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job description

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Who we are

Chemify is creating a future where important molecules, drugs and new materials currently unimaginable are instantly accessible and thereby radically increasing the speed of innovation, quality of life, and reach of humanity. The company is digitizing chemistry to design, make, and discover new molecules with the desired function and properties instantly and on-demand. Chemify has built a platform that combines purpose-built programming languages, robotics, AI, and the world's largest and continuously growing database of chemical programs to accelerate chemical discovery to new, transformative heights.

Chemify is supported by some of the best investors from Silicon Valley and across the world, including Triatomic Capital, BlueYard ventures, DCVC, Founders Fund, and others.

The role

You will be joining our rapidly expanding team based on one of our sites located in the West End of Glasgow. The position provides the opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary team spanning software development, cheminformatics, engineering, robotics, chemical synthesis, and drug development.

As a Senior Purification Scientist/Staff Purification Scientist, you will provide the organization with expert insights and know-how for the isolation and purification of materials of interest from reaction mixtures. Ideally bringing knowledge of complex and/or advanced purification techniques of small molecules in an industrial and/or high-throughput environment and complementing the skills and expertise of the existing team. You will participate in the development of the most efficient, automated, and versatile chemical manufacturing laboratory in the world, and lead the purification of a diverse set of compounds and reaction mixtures by working closely with the chemistry team and the operations team.

Further, you will collaborate with the software development team, the cheminformatics team, and vendors to provide feedback, troubleshooting help, and new feature ideas to continuously improve the performance of our purification workflows.

We believe in a flat organizational structure and provide the opportunity for all team members to lead, take significant responsibilities, and make key decisions regarding our scientific projects and the overall direction of our efforts.

Responsibilities

• Carrying out purifications of high-value final compounds and intermediates on milligram to gram scale using various techniques (this includes flash chromatography, preparative HPLC, preparative SFC, recrystallisation, and distillation).
• Method development for the purification of complex (achiral and chiral) compounds using various analytical methods at your disposal (analytical LCMS, analytical SFC).
• Systematically developing and identifying purification methods by utilizing available methods and systems.
• Documenting purification conditions and outcomes accurately and in a timely manner according to the agreed standards.
• Working closely with other world-class chemists, the laboratory operation team, laboratory management, and other stakeholders to maximize the overall effectiveness and throughput of the purification workflow.
• Troubleshooting challenging purifications.
• Planning, supervising, and executing scientific or technical projects aimed at the improvement of the purification workflow and systems.
• Taking the initiative in developing new and more efficient processes in the purification team and working with the engineering and software teams to develop and test hardware and software tools to enhance the performance of the purification workflow.
• Generating analytical reports in formats as required for the program needs.
• Working on tasks as needed as the company priorities change and evolve.
• Participating from the ground up in the development and success of a transformative hyper-growth start-up.

Requirements

• >2 years of industrial experience as purification scientists, ideally holding a PhD in a relevant subject.
• Expertise in SFC, preparative HPLC, and flash chromatography, working at milligram to gram scale.
• Experience with routinely and systematically screening a diverse set of purification conditions.
• Proven expertise in the purification of organic compounds (small molecules, PROTACS, glues, reactive compounds, etc.) to varying degrees of purity, ranging from those suitable for biochemical assays to the high-purity requirements of in vivo testing.
• Experience with medium to high throughput purifications and demonstrated ability to balance throughput, mass recovery, and purity.
• Expertise in purification methodology for the purification of a diverse range of small molecules including chiral separation of enantiomers on milligram to gram scale.
• Theoretical and practical purification knowledge and skills.
• Problem-solving skills and ability to abstract and formalize problems.
• Experience with processing and interpreting analytical data (one- and two-dimensional NMR spectra, UPLC/HPLC-MS data) to confirm purity & structural identity of materials and generating final analytical reports.
• Enthusiasm to learn new approaches and concepts and to work with an experimental automation platform.
• Oral and written communication & presentation skills (English fluency).

Desired skills & attributes

• Experience leading a team of analytical chemists or leading high throughput purification campaigns.
• Experience with robotic systems for synthetic chemistry.
• Experience with electronic tools such as LIMS, Electronic Laboratory Notebooks, etc.