Postdoctoral Fellowship (08) at University of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England

We are seeking to appoint two Senior Research Fellows to join our world leading team in the Academic Unit for Ageing & Stroke Research (ASR), located at Leeds Institute of Health Sciences and Bradford Institute for Health Research. The ASR is a long-established applied health research centre with an international reputation for research related to older people and stroke. Research outputs have directly influenced UK healthcare policy, are cited in clinical guidelines worldwide, and have led to international changes in practice for the identification and management of older people living with frailty. The successful applicant will join this established team of mixed-methods researcher.

We seek to appoint two postdoctoral researcher with a skill set that aligns with our existing research portfolio as further research capacity development. This includes (as examples) researcher with qualitative research expertise (including intervention co-design), expertise in epidemiology/biostatistics, including the use of routine health and care data for research, behavioural science, implementation science/knowledge mobilisation, advanced evidence synthesis (network meta-analysis, individual participant data meta-analysis).

We are seeking to support career development for individuals who have a trajectory to be a future UK and international research leader in ageing and/or stroke research. You will contribute to ongoing work in the Unit and develop your own research portfolio, with support through the transition to becoming an independent researcher by senior colleagues in the Unit.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a diagnostic imaging modality that is well-established in the clinic. It allows organs and tissues to be imaged in patients without the need to cut them open. Diffusion-Weighted MRI (DMRI) infers the microstructure by measuring how water molecules diffuse inside the tissue. DMRI can also be tuned to zoom into cells and to image structures within them. However, it is not known for example whether DMRI can measure how many mitochondria are in tissue. Mitochondria are organelles found inside cells and provide 95% of their energy for them to function normally. They are present in higher densities in organs which are “energy-hungry” such as the heart. It is well-known that mitochondria do not function normally in many heart diseases, that their size and shape may be changed, and their density may be reduced. This in turn makes them a potential target for treatment. The current project, which is funded by the British Heart Foundation for two years, aims to advance DMRI to measure mitochondrial content in the heart, to validate it with histology and to correlate it with assessments of the energy metabolism. The postholder will work in an interdisciplinary team comprising of (MR) physicists, physiologist, cardiologist and biologist to establish feasibility of the proposed approach. If successful, the ability to image mitochondria in living tissue using MRI will be an important tool for biomedical research and therapy development.

We are looking for an outstanding research fellow to join our interdisciplinary team investigating how proteins aggregate into amyloid fibrils, and how fibrils with different structures perturb cellular function. This 6-year Wellcome Discovery award will involve three post-doctoral fellows and two PhD students, who will form an integrated team combining biochemical, biophysical, cell biological and structural methods (cryoEM and cryoET) with the goal of transforming our understanding of amyloid polymorphism in vitro, in cells, and in mouse models and human tissue. The project will focus on IAPP involved in type-2 diabetes and a-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease. For this position we are seeking a talented postdoctoral researcher with expertise in biochemistry and cell biology, to explore how small molecules, metabolites and differences in cellular conditions influence the mechanism of amyloid assembly and alter the structures of fibrils formed. Using fluorescence methods, you will develop approaches to track fibril polymorphism and how it changes with time in test tubes, in cells and in human/murine tissue. You will also investigate fibrils extracted from murine and patient samples and to determine the role of different fibril types in causing cellular dysfunction and disease. You will work closely with two other postdoctoral fellows funded on the grant who bring expertise in biophysical analysis of amyloid assembly and structural methods (cryoEM/ET). 

You will be based in the laboratories of Professors Sheena Radford and Neil Ranson, and work closely with other members of our amyloid team. For this position you should have (or be close to completing) a PhD in Biochemistry, Biophysics, Cell Biology or a related discipline, and extensive experience of using biochemical, biophysical and cell biological methods to elucidate biological mechanisms involving protein assembly. 

We are looking for an outstanding research fellow to join our interdisciplinary team investigating how proteins aggregate into amyloid fibrils, and how fibrils with different structures perturb cellular function. This 6-year Wellcome Discovery award will involve three post-doctoral fellows and two PhD students, who will form an integrated team combining biochemical, biophysical, cell biological and structural methods (cryoEM and cryoET) with the goal of transforming our understanding of amyloid polymorphism in vitro and its consequences in cells, in mouse models and in human tissue. The project will focus on IAPP involved in type-2 diabetes and -synuclein in Parkinson’s disease. For this position we are seeking a talented postdoctoral researcher with expertise in cryoEM/ET of protein assemblies. You will use cryoEM/ET to explore how changing the assembly conditions alters the structures of amyloid fibrils, and how fibril structure and polymorphism change with time in vitro, in cells and in tissues. You will also determine the structures of fibrils extracted from murine and patient samples and determine the role of different fibril types in causing cellular dysfunction and disease. You will work closely with two other postdoctoral fellows funded on the grant who bring expertise in biophysical analysis of amyloid assembly and cell biological/imaging methods.

You will be based in the laboratories of Professors Sheena Radford and Neil Ranson, and work closely with other members of our amyloid team. For this position you should have (or be close to completing) a PhD in Structural biology (cryoEM/ET) to elucidate protein assembly mechanisms. 

You will be joining an exciting consortium consisting of leading industrial partners in railway and power sectors together with University of Leeds, to address the technical and operational challenges in designing, constructing and energising Railway Energy Hubs connecting to the 25kV AC and/or 750V DC traction networks. This project is the first micro-grid technology to interface across-sectors and provide flexibility services to both the railway network and the power grid. 

You will be supporting the project lead to supervise a team of researchers and engineers to conduct the design and development of a multi-layer control strategy which enables the hubs to handle the coordinated control of battery storage, variable DC/AC power sources and highly uncertain stochastic traction loads. 

Furthermore, you will be leading the impact, innovation and funding activities, engage proactively with industrial partners to ensure the research remains relevant, has a clear pathway to impact, and take a leading role in the development and writing of proposals to secure new research funding from national and international sources. 

You are expected to be a well-established expert at the forefront of industrial R&D in the field of energy and transport decarbonization, having been instrumental in solving the puzzle of a modern power system and having deep, practical knowledge of the entire railway electrification ecosystem. You should also have a strong track record in cross-sector system modelling and data analysis with applications to power and railway systems.

We seek a postdoctoral research scientist to work within the ARIA-funded, multi-centre project PROMOTE (Progressing Earth System Modelling for Tipping Point Early Warning Systems). The successful candidate will join the UKESM core team, contributing to the development, evaluation, and application of a new hybrid-resolution version of the 2nd UK Earth system model (UKESM2).  The key aim of PROMOTE is to develop and apply a high-resolution ESM to investigate the risks, consequences, and potential interactions between abrupt changes in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG) and the Greenland ice sheet. The resulting modelling system may act as an early-warning system for abrupt change in both phenomena. 

PROMOTE consists of 7 partner institutes: the universities of Leeds, Reading, Edinburgh and Bristol, as well as the Met Office, the National Oceanography Centre, and the British Antarctic Survey. Staff at Leeds and Reading are also members of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS). The successful candidate will be fully integrated into this consortium, as well as becoming a member of the UKESM core team. To increase integration with the UKESM team, while this is a University of Leeds position, the successful candidate will be physically based at the Met Office in Exeter, where the bulk of the UKESM team are located.

Please note: If you are not a British or Irish citizen, from 1 January 2021 you will require permission to work in the UK. This will normally be in the form of a visa but, if you are an EEA/Swiss citizen and resident in the UK before 31 December 2020, this may be your passport or status under the EU Settlement Scheme. 

We are seeking a highly motivated Research Fellow to support the completion of the CholOut-EWS project. This post will synthesise project findings, finalise the end-of-project report, and lead a publication focused on data governance within early warning systems.