External Screen Lead

**External Screen Lead - High Throughput Screening (HTS)**

**Location: Cambridge (UK)**

**Competitive salary with excellent benefits**

**Who we are**

Within Discovery Sciences, the High Throughput Screening (HTS) group’s core purpose is to deliver hit series of small molecule compounds confirmed as active against a disease target of interest. These are then provided to project teams to initiate medicinal chemistry campaigns as a starting point for developing human therapeutics.

**The role**

Within the AstraZeneca High Throughput Screening (HTS) group we run a portfolio of external projects with academic collaborators giving researchers an opportunity to access our ground breaking automation and world class compound collection. These collaborations are a mixture of screens developed by the academic partners and run within the AZ HTS facility and screens run in the academic lab on the AZ compound collection. As External Screen Lead you are responsible for the management and delivery of all of these projects from initial feasibility scoping to structure release of compounds fitting the desired hit profile.

You will provide scientific leadership to the lab scientists running the screens and be the go-to person for the projects both internally and externally. You will be an excellent communicator and will be comfortable establishing and building relationships with stakeholders at all levels of seniority. The role involves running multiple projects within different therapy areas at any given time and therefore strong organizational and project management skills are important. As well as being an integral part of the HTS team, you will also be part of AZ’s Open Innovation Programme, where you will help deliver a portfolio of collaborative drug discovery projects.

**Typical Accountabilities**
- Perform feasibility assessments on proposed projects and provide feedback, recommendations and conclusions
- In partnership with the Principal Investigators produce project workplans including HTS cascade (includes primary assay technology selection plus implementation of relevant cascade assays e.g. orthogonal, selectivity, artefact etc.), budget and timelines and work with Business Development to ensure contracts are in place.
- Provide expert advice to collaborators including identifying and influencing adoption of improvements to assay design/selection/data analysis and cascades.
- Transfer assays into HTS from the collaborator’s lab and optimise the assays to function at scale. Perform comprehensive assay validation, deliver screening of up to ~1M small molecule compounds and confirm actives in concentration response format through all relevant cascade assays.
- Scientific leadership of scientists/senior scientists within HTS group including assistance with identifying and troubleshooting technical issues with assays, technologies and data analysis via planning, execution and analysis of appropriate experimentation
- Perform data analysis on externally generated data-sets using AZ software ensuring all partners are bought-in to the analysis approach and any issues are resolved through open communication with the collaborator.
- Work closely with AZ chemists to select the best chemical series, meeting the required hit profile, to release structures to the PI.
- Be an integral member of the Open Innovation team working to deliver Target Innovation projects.
- Allocate project budget in line with overall funding, manage budget through lifetime of project, and work with AZ finance business partner to produce and send invoices to funding partners.
- Work with leadership team to identify new external collaborations and continue to evolve the existing ones to ensure scientific impact and the balanced utilisation of AZ’s HTS capabilities.
- Maintain regular communication with Principal Investigator and their team to provide updates and contribute to joint problem-solving and planning.
- Work closely with the HTS Leadership Team to co-ordinate the resourcing and scheduling of external projects in line with internal project needs.
- Find opportunities to outsource specific elements of the projects to specialist CROs e.g. bulk reagent generation, assay development etc. and handle these work packages.
- Work closely with compound management to ensure timely and effective supply of compounds/libraries to collaborators.
- Develop and maintain scientific and technology knowledge relevant to the role building expertise in specific aspects of benefit to the department.
- Contribute to and nurture a continuous improvement culture by finding opportunities in the workplace where improvements can be made. Ensure all work is carried out in accordance with Safety, Health & Environment standards and AZ guidelines.
- Maintain tracking and reporting for the external project portfolio

**Education, Qualifications, Skills and Experience**

Essential
- PhD in a relevant scientific field or equivalent scientific experience
- Track r