BRF Research Scientist (Senior Animal Technician - Production and Supply/Experimental)

Location: The Francis Crick Institute, Midland Road, London

Short summary

BRF Senior Animal Technicians are vital to the success of the Francis Crick Institute. The role of a BRF Senior Animal Technician can involve specialist technical support, or management of a specific area of work, or supervision of others, or a combination of all these.   

The BRF manages several multidisciplinary animal facilities housing rodents, zebrafish, Xenopus spp., laboratory opossums and ferrets, with associated specialist equipment and dedicated areas. It provides a service to ~550 Personal Licensees using ~55 Home Office Project Licences and has over 150 staff.

The BRF department brings together a number of highly skilled and specialised individuals who contribute to the culture of care of animals in a laboratory environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Providing excellent animal husbandry involving specialised caging systems, ensuring that the standards of animal care and welfare, required by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, are maintained within specialised barrier systems
• Promoting the 3Rs  
• Maintaining Genetically Altered and Wild-Type animal lines which may involve using complex breeding systems to achieve specific gene combinations and/or ensuring supply and demand requirements are met
• Providing post-operative care to a range of surgical models
• Being familiar with all relevant Project Licences and monitoring adverse effects in individual animals in multiple studies across a range of experimental models
• Maintaining, through adherence of strict SOP’s, the integrity of the microbiological barriers for all BRF areas and to report any potential and actual breaches to the BRF Unit Manager(s)
• Processing and organising space and animal shipments, both internally and externally, with relevant stakeholders
• Working alongside NACWO in responding and acting upon health and welfare concerns

About us

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King’s College London.

The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016 it moved into a new state-of-the-art building in central London which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under in one building in Europe.

The Francis Crick Institute will be world-class with a strong national role. Its distinctive vision for excellence includes commitments to collaboration; developing emerging talent and exporting it the rest of the UK; public engagement; and helping turn discoveries into treatments as quickly as possible to improve lives and strengthen the economy.

• If you are interested in applying for this role, please apply via the ‘Apply’ button above.
• All offers of employment are subject to successful security screening and continuous eligibility to work in the United Kingdom.

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