11 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom

Applications are invited for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Assistant to investigate mechanical sensing in cardiac muscle cells and its involvement in cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular diseases are the major cause of mortality worldwide, yet there is still a lack of effective treatments. Recent research increasingly emphasised that changes to mechanical sensing and signalling critically influences the disease onset and progression1-5. Our recent data indicated a novel mechanosensitive complex at the cell-cell contacts of cardiomyocytes, the contractile cells in the heart, which we want to study here in further detail, using primary cardiomyocyte cultures, bioengineering and advanced microscopy tools.

The position will be based at the Iskratsch lab. The project is a collaboration with Prof Andrew Tinker to investigate the implications on the cardiomyocyte electrophysiology and Prof Cesare Terracciano to study this complex at tissue level using myocardial slice cultures6, for which the candidate will also perform work at Imperial College London.

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate with experience in machine and deep learning to work on a research project funded by the Precision Health, Cardiovascular Devices and Trials Theme, part of a recent NIHR Biomedical Research Centre Award to Barts Health NHS Trust.

The research will involve using the cardiovascular digital twin concept to digitally model three disease states: acute coronary syndromes, valvular heart disease and hypertension. These models will be created by inputting data from available existing and novel wearables, sensing technologies, apps and large data registries. Using this data, digital models will be created to provide personalised patient treatment plans supporting their disease management, predicting disease states/trends and enabling device choice/design by predicting the patient’s response.

This project is funded by Wellcome and led by Prof Andrew Prendergast who is the Director of the Zvitambo Institute for Maternal and Child Health Research in Zimbabwe and has established clinical trials to improve healthy birth and growth. You will work under the supervision of Dr Tina Chowdhury at the Centre for Bioengineering in the School of Engineering and Materials Science, who has developed 3D models to target inflammatory pathways that are common in preterm birth (https://www.sems.qmul.ac.uk/staff/t.t.chowdhury).

Our goal is to better understand the pathogenesis of preterm birth which affects 13.4 million babies each year, making it the leading cause of death amongst children under five years old. You will join a transdisciplinary team of UK-Zimbabwe academics working towards understanding the complex interactions of how extreme heat affects pregnancy and preterm birth. Zimbabwe has one of the highest global preterm birth rates (32/1000 live births). Currently, there is a paucity of clinical interventions to prevent preterm birth in rural Zimbabwe. 

This project will utilize a human in vitro model representing the maternal-fetal interface to investigate the effects of heat stress on inflammatory mechanisms. You will evaluate the interactions using clinical biomarkers identified during pregnancy from women who live in Zimbabwe to discover whether heat amplifies inflammation leading to rupture and preterm birth.

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate with experience in machine and deep learning to work on a research project funded by the Precision Musculoskeletal Care Theme of the recent NIHR Biomedical Research Centre Award to Barts Health NHS Trust.

The research will involve analysis of multi-omics data including our unique biomedical resource of 1000 RA patients with longitudinal biopsy and matching blood, as well as patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) for clinical management.  Methods likely to be relevant include traditional machine learning approaches such as logistic regression and gradient boosting, as well as Bayesian networks and deep neural networks.

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Assistant (PDRA) to work at the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences (SBBS) in the research group of Dr. Mario dos Reis, as part of a BBSRC project on development of Bayesian methods to analyse large genomic datasets. We seek a highly motivated individual with relevant background in statistics/physics/computational biology. The successful candidate will contribute to real data analyses and to the development of Bayesian MCMC algorithms in the MCMCtree software and associated R packages.  We are interested in Hamiltonian Monte Carlo and covariance-informed MCMC samplers. The project is a collaboration with Prof. Ziheng Yang (UCL) and Prof. Philip C. J. Donoghue (Bristol University).

We are looking for a highly-motivated and driven clinician (with GMC registration) who can develop and contribute to new research ideas and has the ambition and potential to lead the delivery of this liver tissue work.  Experience in viral liver disease is essential as well as endoscopy and fibroscan (desirable) We have a collaborative ethos and we have active links with groups across London, the UK and Europe.  This project will involve working within a large team and working closely with collaborators to develop and optimize approaches in the study of liver tissue, therefore excellent interpersonal and communication skills are essential.

This full-time PDRA would particularly suit an ambitious early career researcher with an interest in discovering endogenous RNAs and peptides that mediate anti-tumour immunity and which are epigenetically controlled. 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.

Ranked joint 7th in the UK for the quality of its research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, Queen Mary University of London is one of the UK’s leading research-intensive higher education institutions, delivering world class education and knowledge transfer across a wide range of subjects in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Medicine & Dentistry and Science & Engineering.

The Postdoctoral Research Assistant will contribute to the intellectual life of the School / Institute and wider institution. They will be involved in an ESRC-funded study, CREATE (Cultivating REsilience in Adolescents with Trauma-related Emotions). The project aims to co-create a protocol for delivering arts-therapy based groups to children and young people who have experienced victimization through illegal employment and exploitation in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. The post holder will help to coordinate and manage data collection across the 3 international sites, facilitate data management and analysis, and plan dissemination events.

The post is based at Newham Academic Unit / Whitechapel Campus in London. It is a full time (35 hours per week), fixed term appointments for 30 months, with an expected start date of 20 May 2024. The starting salary will be Grade 5, Spinal Point 31 [£42,405 per annum (pro-rata)], inclusive of London Allowance. Interviews will be held in late April or early May.