Postdoctoral Research Assistant

Department: Blizard Institute
Salary: £40,223 - £47,178
Reference: 1524
Location: Whitechapel
Date posted: 12 March 2024
Closing date: 26 April 2024

Further details and apply

About the Role
This full-time PDRA post would particularly suit an ambitious early career researcher with an interest in discovering endogenous RNAs and peptides that mediate anti-tumour immunity and the chromatin-associated proteins that regulate them, including the human silencing hub. The post is focused on non-small cell lung cancer. The candidate would work in a dynamic and diverse team at Queen Mary University (QMUL) and with external co-investigators and collaborators and this work would inform future cancer therapies and vaccines. The role could represent a stepping stone for someone interested in establishing their own lab afterwards or developing their skills, network and opportunities and there are possibilities for flexible or part-time working.

About You
The successful candidate will lead their own project focused on chromatin mechanisms of regulation of tumour immunogenicity, with a focus on the human silencing hub and on non-small cell lung cancer. Discovery studies will be based in lung cancer cells lines with KRAS activating mutations initially and will focus on chromatin mechanisms, nucleic acid sensing and dark antigen discovery. Findings will be validated using FluoroSpot and flow cytometry panels on peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from adenocarcinoma and lung squamous cell carcinoma patients. A tumour transplantation model in mice will be used to assess how knockout or inhibition of chromatin regulators impacts on anti-tumour immunity in vivo. The postholder will run some bioinformatics analyses of their own data (RNAseq, CUT&RUN data). All aims will be supported by external co-investigators and collaborators.

About the Institute

The Blizard Institute was established in 2003 and is one of six Institutes within the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, QMUL. The Institute comprises approximately 350 staff based in four academic Centres and one Public Engagement Centre and supports a combined total of c750 postgraduate research and taught students. The Institute aims to deliver excellence in all aspects of research, teaching and clinical service.

About Queen Mary
At Queen Mary University of London, we believe that a diversity of ideas helps us achieve the previously unthinkable.

Throughout our history, we’ve fostered social justice and improved lives through academic excellence. And we continue to live and breathe this spirit today, not because it’s simply ‘the right thing to do’ but for what it helps us achieve and the intellectual brilliance it delivers.

We continue to embrace diversity of thought and opinion in everything we do, in the belief that when views collide, disciplines interact, and perspectives intersect, truly original thought takes form.

Benefits
We offer competitive salaries, access to a generous pension scheme, 30 days’ leave per annum (pro-rata for part-time/fixed-term), a season ticket loan scheme and access to a comprehensive range of personal and professional development opportunities. In addition, we offer a range of work life balance and family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, and campus facilities including an on-site nursery at the Mile End campus.

Queen Mary’s commitment to our diverse and inclusive community is embedded in our appointments processes. Reasonable adjustments will be made at each stage of the recruitment process for any candidate with a disability. We are open to considering applications from candidates wishing to work flexibly.

Further details and apply