Research Associate (Fixed Term)
Full Time, Fixed Term 4 years to 31st March 2029
We are looking to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Associate on a fixed term contract for 4 years with the possibility of extension. You would focus on the immunology of severe mental illness, using single cell data to discover biomarkers for patient stratification or new treatment targets. The post is funded by research grants supporting these studies, including the UKRI ImmunoMind Platform Hub (2024-2029). You will be based within Dr Lynall's research group in the Department of Psychiatry, with co-supervision from Dr Gosia Trynka, who leads the Immune Genomics Group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and with whose group you would also interact closely. Your work would be part of the UKRI ImmunoMind Consortium, a vibrant interdisciplinary group of doctors, researchers and people with lived experience working to identify novel immunometabolic biomarkers and treatments for severe mental illness. This consortium is led by Prof Ed Bullmore at the University of Cambridge. Your work would also be part of the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre Mental Health theme.
Key responsibilities
The Research Associate would be responsible for investigating the cellular immune pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders, developing bioinformatic analyses of existing and forthcoming functional genomic datasets to test hypothesis about how different cells and molecules contribute to psychiatric disorders. This would be with a view to understanding immune mechanisms, identification of new treatment targets, or discovery of potential diagnostic biomarkers in psychiatry.
The main roles of the post will include:
- Analysis of a forthcoming single cell dataset generated from blood samples from patients with psychosis (N=200) and healthy controls (N=50), who are being recruited from throughout the UK as part of the UK Mental Health Mission.
- Integration of these data with other functional genomic and single cell immune datasets that are available publicly or in-house. This will involve collation, quality control and integration of functional genomic datasets from immune cells (bulk and single cell transcriptomic and epigenetic datasets).
- This is primarily a bioinformatic post. You would not be responsible for generating the single cell data, which will be generated at the Wellcome Sanger Institute using in-house pipelines, but you will have opportunities to perform experimental validation experiments if desired.
- Contributing as required to protocol development, study planning and governance.
- Contributing to lab strategy, culture and function, including mentoring or supervising students.
- Presenting data and results both within team meetings and externally (e.g. at conferences). You would also discuss results with collaborators and experts by experience within the ImmunoMind consortium; with other investigators in the ImmunoMind Big Data workgroup; and with members of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Functional Genomics workgroup, for which Dr Lynall is co-chair.
- Drafting manuscripts and abstracts.
- Arranging meetings with partners and collaborators as needed, setting agendas and following-up on action points
Informal enquiries are encouraged and may be directed to Dr Mary-Ellen Lynall, mel41@cam.ac.uk
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Please ensure that you upload a covering letter and a CV in the Upload section of the online application. The covering letter should outline how you match the criteria for the post and why you are applying for this role. If you upload any additional documents which have not been requested, we will not be able to consider these as part of your application.
Please include details of your referees, including email address and phone number, one of which must be your most recent line manager.
The closing date for applications is: 2nd March 2025
The interview date for the role is: To be confirmed
Please quote reference RN45020 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.
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