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BRF Research Officer (Entry level or Experienced Aquarist/Animal Technician), Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

BRF Research Officer (Entry level or Experienced Aquarist/Animal Technician), Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

Created by Wei-Chia Tseng
Oct 14, 2024

 

Location: London

Salary: From £25,755 with benefits, subject to skills and experience

Hours: Full Time

Contract Type: Permanent

Closes: 2nd November 2024

Job Ref: R1903

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

 

Key Animal Technician/Aquarist experience and competencies

Full training will be provided, and post holders are expected to participate in continuing professional development.

The post holder should embody and demonstrate our core Crick values: bold, open, and collegial, in addition to the following:

 

Essential Qualifications, experience and competencies:

  • Educated to GCSE level or equivalent and possess a minimum of 5 GCSEs (including Maths and/or Science)

  • Respects and has empathy towards the care and use of animals in science

  • Demonstrates contributing effectively to the work of a team

  • Has a desire to work in the laboratory animal technology field

  • Possesses good time management and organisational skills

  • Possesses good observational and attention to detail skills

  • Possesses clear and effective written and oral communication skills

  • Proven accurate record keeping skills

  • Willing to participate regularly in essential animal care overtime, weekends and public holidays (including Christmas day)

  • Is fit to meet the demands of the role, this will include frequent carrying and lifting and standing for most of the day

  • Is computer literate

  • Is conscientious and reliable

 

Desirable Qualifications, experience and competencies:

  • Previous experience in the laboratory animal technology field

  • Qualifications in Animal Technology, animal management or zoology

  • Holding a Home Office Personal Licence (PIL A, B, L&E1)

 

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.

To apply, please see https://www.crick.ac.uk/careers-study/vacancies/2024-10-07-brf-research-officer-entry-level-or-experienced-animal-technician/aquarist