16 Postdoctoral Fellowship at King’s College London, United Kingdom

Inclusion as a Norm at King’s – Leadership, Understanding the issues, Developing individuals, Enacting change (INKLUDE) is a Wellcome funded 24 month project which seeks to implement and evaluate innovative approaches to significantly improve the inclusion of individuals from under-represented groups in research careers, initially focusing on women and those from minoritized ethnic groups. The project was funded through the Wellcome Trust Institutional Funding for Research Culture grant scheme.

The project is led by President & Principal of King’s College London, Professor Shitij Kapur, with co-applicants drawn from across the university on the basis of their knowledge, experience and skills in the area.

The School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences (SCMMS) provides an outstanding multi-disciplinary environment for the pursuit of cutting-edge cardiovascular and metabolic research. We study the fundamental molecular, cellular, and physiological processes that underly normal and abnormal cardiovascular and metabolic function and drive the translation of this strong basic science into advances in clinical practice.

Our research focuses on four main Themes (Cardiac, Vascular, Cardiometabolic, Diabetes & Obesity), with two cross-cutting Themes (Basic and Clinical). The School is led by Professor Mauro Giacca and comprises over 65 clinical and non-clinical academic groups, hosting 400 personnel and 110 PhD students. Our community of world-renowned researchers and educators have access to state-of-the art core facilities and expertise, including facilities for high-throughput screening and high content imaging, multimodality in vivo imaging, proteomics, integrative physiology, and viral & non-viral vector production.

The School activities are carried out at three main locations: James Black Centre in Denmark Hill, St Thomas’s Hospital and Franklin-Wilkins Building in South Bank and the Hodgkin Building and New Hunt House/Randal Centre in Guy’s Campus.

The School of Life Course & Population Sciences is one of six Schools that make up the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King’s College London. The School unites over 400 experts in women and children’s health, diabetes, nutritional sciences, population health and the molecular genetics of human disease. Our research links the causes of common health problems to life’s landmark stages, treating life, disease, and healthcare as a continuum. We are interdisciplinary by nature and this innovative approach works: 91 per cent of our research submitted to the Subjects Allied to Medicine (Pharmacy, Nutritional Sciences and Women’s Health cluster) for REF 2014 was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent. We use this expertise to teach the next generation of health professionals and research scientists. Based across King’s Denmark Hill, Guy’s, St Thomas’ and Waterloo campuses, our academic programme of teaching, research and clinical practice is embedded across six Departments.

This Academy of Medical Sciences-funded research project aims to assess innovative, non-invasive measures of anti-seizure medication (ASM) efficacy in the cerebral cortex using advanced transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technology. The objective is to validate these measures’ sensitivity to ASMs targeting voltage-gated sodium channels, potentially facilitating objective treatment monitoring and adjustment in patients, as well as evaluating ASM efficacy in drug development trials. This research, conducted with healthy individuals, will inform future studies involving epilepsy patients.  

The successful candidate will join Dr. Hannah’s lab, specialising in non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation and basic neuroscience methods (electromyography, EMG; electroencephalography, EGG; reflex testing) to investigate cortical, brainstem, and spinal neurophysiology. The project is supported by Prof. Mark Richardson, whose lab studies people with epilepsy and the mechanisms underlying seizure onset. The work will be conducted in the Centre for Human and Applied Physiological Sciences laboratories on Guy’s Campus of King’s College London.  

The primary purpose of the post is to support work for our NIHR HSDR grant, “Improving kidney failure risk calculations in ethnically diverse populations”, involving epidemiological data analysis using electronic health records. This will include developing applications of epidemiology to translational medicine and public health. The post holder will contribute to risk prediction studies and research to develop methodologies and applications in ‘big data’ research using traditional statistical approaches and machine learning methods. You will undertake translational research to address health priorities for underserved and minority ethnic populations, aiming to reduce kidney health inequalities.

You will join a team that utilises large datasets derived from primary care electronic records, health services and public health research including CPRD and Lambeth DataNet.

You will contribute to both epidemiological studies of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and also to the work of the team by using electronic health records and translational applications. The research will utilise prognostic modelling techniques for stratification using phenotypic information derived from the electronic clinical records for large populations with long term conditions.

The successful applicant will pursue a research project as an integral member of a group working on neural circuits underlying flexible cognitive behaviour in mice. The project will aim to understanding how brain-wide neural circuits lead to flexible cognitive behaviours. The techniques employed may include chronic in-vivo 2-photon and 3-photon calcium imaging of excitatory and inhibitory cell classes, targeted holographic optogenetic manipulations, extracellular neuropixel recordings, viral vector based functional circuit mapping, and quantitative mouse behaviour.   

The successful applicant will benefit from the collaborative culture of the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King’s College London and will have the opportunity to develop collaborations with groups studying animal models of brain disorders.  

The Basant group, funded by a grant from the Wellcome Trust, seeks to understand how tyrosine phosphatases regulate cell signalling. This large family of enzymes has been highly understudied compared to its kinase counterpart. We investigate these phosphatases in the context of signalling to the actin cytoskeleton and in virus-infected cells.

The researcher appointed will focus on candidate phosphatases that have been validated to regulate actin dynamics during infection with the poxvirus Vaccinia. How do these phosphatases function, what are their key interactors, how do they recognise substrates, how do they impact signalling dynamics and outputs? The broader goal is to contextualise these findings in uninfected cells and, with the help of a collaborator, in other viral infections. The researcher appointed will take advantage of, and further develop, a Vaccinia virus-based signalling platform, as well as cutting-edge molecule counting and optogenetics tools available in the lab. Experience in phosphatase biology, microscopy, cell signalling or biochemistry is desirable but not mandatory.

A PhD in a relevant discipline is required (or applicant to be near completion). A high-quality publication record and effective science communication skills are essential. International applicants are welcome.  

We seek a talented, highly motivated and independent Postdoctoral Research Associate (fixed-term) to study antibody structure and function at King’s College London. Work will be carried out in the laboratory of Professor James McDonnell in the Randall Centre for Cell and Molecular Biophysics within the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine at King’s College London.  This full-time fixed term post is part of a joint programme with industrial collaborator Apollo Therapeutics.  The successful applicant will join an interdisciplinary team studying the structure, molecular interactions and functions of antibodies. 

The Researcher will be part of a team using structure-based methods to develop novel inhibitory agents of antibodies. Successful applicants will have experience in X-ray crystallographic studies of proteins and protein complexes. Structural methods will be a core component of this research project, and these approaches will be complemented by biochemical and biophysical experiments.

The Spagnoli lab. is coordinating the multi-partner, interdisciplinary consortium and will be primarily responsible for developing innovative approaches to closely mimic key features of the native in vivo islet microenvironment using stem cells. The candidates will be leading these efforts and help in developing this ambitious research program.

The Spagnoli lab. is a highly dynamic, inclusive team, doing exciting science and member of the outstanding Centre for Gene Therapy & Regenerative Medicine at King’s College London, UK. This is a world-class research environment with all facilities essential for this ambitious research programme.

We are seeking to appoint a postdoctoral research associate with an excellent track record in knowledge graphs and machine learning. Topics of interest in this area include, but are not limited to: natural language processing, large language models,  graph learning, general pre-trained transformers, prompt engineering, knowledge graphs, knowledge representation, knowledge engineering.  

The successful candidate will join the Distributed AI (DAI) group in the Department of Informatics, King’s College London. They will carry out research in neuro-symbolic AI, with a focus on using generative AI and prompt engineering as a method to engineer knowledge graphs one can trust. This includes the design of algorithms and architectures, but also process blueprints and guidance for knowledge engineers to use generative AI tools productively.

The post holder will work closely with Prof Elena Simperl and Dr Albert Meroño Peñuela and a team of 10 researchers and PhD students in the area of knowledge graphs. The role covers research in the areas mentioned above, as well as the production of scientific publications and application showcases to drive research impact. The researcher will also be expected to support the organisation of research hackathons in prompt engineering for knowledge engineering, aligned with the activities of the Knowledge Graph Interest Group at the Alan Turing Institute. The research outputs will inform work undertaken in the group in several large collaborative grants and application areas, including cultural heritage, enterprise data management, and legal compliance.

The Department of Informatics is seeking to recruit a Postdoctoral Researcher for an EPSRC-funded research project on the complexity of database query evaluation, under the direction of Faculty member Hubie Chen.

The successful applicant should have (or expected to receive) a PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related discipline.  Research interest and experience in the following areas will be valued: logic in computer science, database theory, finite model theory, structural decomposition methods, term rewriting, and parameterized complexity theory.

Travel funding will be available to you, and you will have the opportunity to interact with our project partners in China, France, and Germany.

The Department of Informatics is looking to appoint a highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to join our team for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project, jointly funded by Innovate UK, ControlPlane and King’s College London. In this exciting role, you will bridge the gap between academia and industry, applying formal methods to real-world security challenges in the Cloud Native space: you will be working on KubeSec-AFM, a prototype to formally assess the security posture of Kubernetes clusters.

Kubernetes is a Cloud Native technology that is changing the way software applications are deployed and run in Cloud by providing automated deployment, scaling and management capabilities. Therefore, ensuring its security is critical. Existing methods to ensure Kubernetes’ security rely on maintaining databases of human expertise, cyber-attacks, and platform misconfigurations. However, it is currently impossible to compile a complete list of potential risks to guarantee that teams can securely use Kubernetes. This may leave critical Cloud infrastructure exposed. The main aim of this job is to use formal methods to assess Kubernetes security and enable companies to optimise cost and risk and ensure the security of critical cloud infrastructure.

We are seeking a clinical research fellow to join the department of neuroimaging at King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neurosciences.   

The successful candidate will join a large team with extensive experience in neuroimaging and specifically an ambitious large-scale imaging study looking at novel biomarkers and therapeutic markers in people with premanifest and early manifest Huntington’s disease, the iMarkHD study. They would work as a clinical research fellow on this project and be responsible for participant recruitment, clinical assessments and performing study visits, including MRI and PET scanning (including injections), and completing data entry. 

They will be able to develop personal research interest, and depending on availability, collaborating on other research projects within the department. They will be given the opportunity to write articles for publication and present data in national and international congresses. Based on experience and views of the candidate, there is the prospect of registering for a PhD where appropriate.  

The successful candidate should be a GMC registered physician (or be eligible to register based on e.g. overseas registration) and preferably should have experience with clinical research and PET and MRI scan procedures. Experience in neurology, psychiatry, or neurosciences, as well as previous experience with clinical research is essential.   

This role sits within the Department of Perinatal Imaging (name will be changing to Early Life Imaging), King’s College London.

The postholder will be based in the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences in King’s College London which has a multidisciplinary faculty of clinicians and academics and state-of-the-art facilities for carrying out cutting-edge imaging research. The role also closely liaises with the Neonatal Unit at Guy’s & St Thomas’, now the largest in the South Thames Region and one of the largest in the United Kingdom having completed in the recent years an expansion project, with 20 Intensive Care, 12 High Dependency and 20 Special Care beds. There are over 7,000 births per year on-site, the majority of which are from a high risk, inner city local population. There is an academic Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine Department.  A substantial number of antenatal referrals and in-utero transfers occur due to a wide range of Maternal Medicine tertiary services, including Diabetes, Lupus, Cardiology and Renal Medicine. Fetal Medicine and Fetal Cardiology services also account for many of these.

There is a close working relationship with subspecialties including the departments of Paediatric Neurology and Neurodisability, Fetal and Paediatric Cardiology, Paediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery, Paediatric General Surgery, Paediatric Anaesthesia, , Paediatric Nephrology & Urology, Paediatric Metabolic Medicine, Paediatric ENT, Plastic Surgery (including the Regional Cleft Lip & Palate Service), Orthopaedic Surgery and Genetics