The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) is seeking a Antimicrobial Resistance Scientist to join a diverse team of over 2,000 skilled and committed professionals. As an important member of the Science Directorate, you will provide meticulous scientific technical support on an interesting variety of commercial projects. In this diverse role, you will:

• Predominantly focus on projects involving antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria such as Campylobacter, E. coli and Salmonella, producing any resulting data in tabular or graphical formats for use in reports and papers.
• Take responsibility for culturing different organisms isolated from a wide range of biological samples. You will also conduct antimicrobial resistance susceptibility testing, including minimum inhibitory concentration and zone diffusion testing.
• Support scientific colleagues in delivering AMR and food safety projects within deadline, conducting antimicrobial resistance gene detection using either single gene or whole genome sequencing approaches. You will also contribute to the speciation of bacteria by applying genetic and MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry approaches.
• Take on a variety of challenges for commercial clients such as bio-veterinary pharmaceuticals, plus government organisations such as the Food Standards Agency and those in academia. You might also be asked to contribute to farm, abattoir or hatchery feed mill investigations.

This is a unique opportunity to join a team that benefits from the wider support of Defra – and the many partnership opportunities that come with. If you are the kind of professional who is always keen to develop, you will excel here – especially given our proven reputation for high-calibre training.

In addition to a first degree in Microbiology or similar, we will expect you to have a good knowledge of antibiotic resistance and molecular genetics, as well as exceptional collaboration and communication skills. If you have a postgraduate qualification that would be highly desirable, but it is more important that you have experience of working within a microbiological laboratory, and the ability to produce reports from collected data. With an overall understanding of the key scientific areas mentioned above, you will have the capacity to work in a fast-paced commercial environment, meeting customer needs and deadlines, and proactively solving issues as they arrive.

It’s our goal to support the personal wellbeing of everyone in APHA. Our benefits include generous annual leave, a contributory pension, staff bonuses and recognition, salary sacrifice benefit options, and an employee discount scheme. We also offer flexible working.