Research Assistant in Biological Activity of Natural Products

We seek to recruit an enthusiastic, highly motivated scientist with proven intellectual and technical abilities to work on the isolation and biological activity of natural products signalling between insects and plants. The project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, involves a collaboration between Professor John Pickett FRS (School of Chemistry) and Dr Wynand van der Goes van Naters (School of Biosciences).

Mosquito vectors of human pathogens employ natural signals to locate sources of nutrients from plants and particularly for orientating to nectar-producing flowers over relatively long distances. Isolation of the natural signals, particularly from flowering plants, will support chemical identification and provision of the signals for the behavioural studies to confirm and develop long range attractants for mosquitoes. The work will also be collaborative with other scientists studying the neurophysiological responses to such and will develop the new attractants for control mosquitoes.

Interested applicants should have a degree in a relevant discipline e.g. biology, biosciences, chemistry (or equivalent experience), and preferably a postgraduate degree at PhD level in one of these disciplines (or relevant industrial experience).

Further information is available at the following webpages:
Professor John Pickett FRS https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/521655-pickett-john and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Pickett

For informal enquiries about the role and the Cardiff School of Chemistry, please contact Professor John Pickett FRS: e-mail PickettJ4@cardiff.ac.uk +44 (0)7720 430117.

For further details about working at Cardiff University, please contact Caroline Pasmore (Chemy-HR@cardiff.ac.uk) or Dr Mahmoud Akhtar (AkhtarM@cardiff.ac.uk).

This position is full time (35 hours per week) and is available immediately until 15th June 2025 to cover maternity leave.

To work for an employer that values and promotes equality of opportunity, please visit click on the Apply button above.

Salary: £32,332 - £34,980 per annum (Grade 5).

Important note: It is the University’s policy to use the person specification as a key tool for short-listing. Candidates should evidence that they meet ALL of the essential criteria as well as, where relevant, the desirable. As part of the application process you will be asked to provide this evidence via a supporting statement.  Please ensure that the evidence you are providing corresponds with the numbered criteria outlined below. Your application will be considered based on the information you provide under each element.

When attaching the supporting statement to your application profile, please ensure that you name it with the vacancy reference number, e.g. Supporting Statement for 18770BR.

Closing date: 28 July 2024

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds who have the ambition to create a University which seeks to fulfil our social, cultural and economic obligation to Cardiff, Wales, and the world. In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Applications may be submitted in Welsh, and an application submitted in Welsh will not be treated less favourably than an application submitted in English.

Cardiff University is a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions we will evaluate applicants on the quality of their research, not publication metrics or the identity of the journal in which the research is published. More information is available at:  Responsible research assessment - Research - Cardiff University.