Research Associate in Neuroscience - INTERNAL ONLY

Job id: 089485. Salary: £43,205 - £50,585 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 13 May 2024. Closing date: 19 May 2024.

Business unit: IoPPN. Department: Wolfson SPaRC.

Contact details:Dr Nicola Hamilton-Whitaker. [email protected]

Location: Guy's Campus. Category: Research.

This is an exciting opportunity to join an enthusiastic team investigating white matter damage occurring during low blood flow, which leads to dementia.   

You will be an expert in demyelinating models and electrophysiology. You will also be an expert in TRP channel function, especially TRPA1 and its role in demyelinating diseases. You will have experience doing behavioural testing, as well as expertise in immunohistochemistry, PCR and RNAScope.  

You will work with mice, design and conduct your own experiments and analyses, and present your work in a variety of formats, including writing up your results for publication in peer-reviewed journals. 

You will be educated to doctoral level in neuroscience or pharmacology, with relevant experience in all aspects of the project. 

You will work in a team alongside PhD students, and in close collaboration with Professor Catherine Hall’s lab at the University of Sussex. 

Please contact Nicola Hamilton-Whitaker, [email protected] for informal enquiries. 

This post will be offered on a full-time, fixed term contract until 23rd September 2024.

• Conduct and design research projects to study white matter function changes during cerebral hypoperfusion, both individually and in collaboration with others.
• Undertake teaching duties, if required.
• Attend and contribute to relevant Laboratory, School and Departmental meetings.
• Plan and coordinate mouse colonies to ensure the required mice are available when required for experiments.
• Collect data using a variety of in vivo and ex vivo methods.
• Develop appropriate analysis pipelines to process and present required data.
• Write up the analyses in the form of an accessible report and a journal article and present findings at conferences or other fora.
• These duties and post may vary over the course of the project.

Skills, knowledge, and experience

Essential criteria  

1.       Experience in all of the following techniques: (1) perfusion fixation of mice; (2) patch-clamping; (3) compound action potential/field recordings; (4) mouse behavioural testing; (5) mouse MRI; (6) RT-qPCR.

2.       Extensive experience in microscopy.

3.       Postdoctoral degree level with appropriate experience 

4.       Evidence of engagement in high quality research activity 

5.       Excellent presentation skills and the ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing, with students, colleagues and external audiences. 

6.       Ability to work individually on own initiative and without close supervision, and as part of a team.  

7.       Ability to exercise a degree of innovation and creative problem solving.  

8.       Excellent organizational and administrative skills 

9.       Experience working with TRPA1 AND demyelinating models.  

10.     Excellent IT skills 

Desirable criteria

1.       Experience in more than one of the following techniques: (1) in vivo surgery; (2) patch-clamping; (3) compound action potential/field recordings; (4) intracerebral AAV induction of gene modification; (5) organotypic brain slice culture; (6) human iPSC derived myelinating cultures; (7) electron microscopy of the white matter.  

2.       Experience studying channel function (e.g. neurotransmitter receptors and TRP channels). 

3.       Experience studying glial cell physiology and/or white matter function. 

Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6.

This post is subject to an Occupational Health Clearance.