BRF Research Officer (Entry level or Experienced Animal Technician/ Aquarist)

Location: The Francis Crick Institute, London

Short summary

Interested in working with animals and taking care of them? Enjoy practical work and have an empathy with animals? If yes, then the role of an Animal Technician/Aquarist may be perfect for you.

At the Francis Crick Institute, we offer training and support to start a rewarding career where you can make a positive difference to both research and animal welfare.

The Biological Research Facility (BRF) is the Crick’s animal facility, offering resources and services to those scientists who use animals to answer their research questions.

The BRF provides high quality husbandry to a variety of laboratory species housed within our cutting-edge facilities, and supports all animal research at the Crick through our comprehensive animal care and use programme. We provide a service to ~550 Personal Licensees using ~55 Home Office Project Licences.

We are incredibly proud of our work, enabling world class science with animal welfare at the heart of all our activities.

The BRF has approximately 150 highly trained animal care staff spread across several self-contained animal units. Our teams of Animal Technicians and Named Animal Care and Welfare Officers (NACWOs) provide daily care for our animals and support researchers with their experiments, to minimise any distress or adverse effects.

Key Responsibilities

• Providing excellent care, welfare and husbandry to laboratory animals including mice, rats, laboratory opossums, ferrets, zebrafish, guppies and frogs, within specialist facilities.
• Cleaning cages/tanks of animals
• Feeding and watering animals
• Checking environmental conditions, such as temperature, humidity and water quality
• Monitoring the condition of animals and making health observations
• Undertaking domestic duties such as general cleaning and disinfection of equipment and areas
• Complying with relevant legislation, such as, Animals (Scientific Procedures Act) 1986 and Health and Safety Regulations

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, Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL, 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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