Postdoctoral Training Fellow – Applied Biotechnology Laboratory

Salary for this Role:

From £38,300, subject to skills and experience

Job Title:

Reports to:

Samuel Rodriques

Closing Date:

23.59GMT

Job Description:

This advert has no closing date and will close subject to a suitable candidate being found.

Reports to: Samuel Rodriques, Group Leader

This is afull-time,fixed term (48 months)position on Crick terms and conditions of employment.

Summary

This position is for a postdoctoral fellow in the Applied Biotechnology Laboratory led by Sam Rodriques. The postholder will seek to develop breakthrough technologies that can be deployed widely to accelerate biology, neuroscience, and medicine. Suitable candidates should have a strong background in areas such as biological engineering, molecular and cellular biology, microscopy, next-generation sequencing, and animal research.

Project summary

The Applied Biotechnology Laboratory works at the interface between academic bioengineering and biotechnology entrepreneurship. Our goal is to develop biotechnologies that address major unmet needs in biology and medicine and to put them into every laboratory or every clinic in the world.

没有定义的项目与此相关post. Candidates who progress to the interview stage will brainstorm a project with the leader of the Applied Biotechnology Laboratory as part of the interview process. The successful candidate will possess impressive creativity, a willingness to take risks and iterate quickly, and exceptional technical competency. Examples of recent and current projects include a novel diagnostic technology that can detect proteins at ultralow concentrations in the blood for infectious disease; a spatial transcriptomics technology that is the first to provide transcriptome-wide gene expression profiling with single-cell spatial resolution; and adeno-associated viruses that can evade the immune system to allow for repeat dosing of gene therapies. In all of these projects, we combine core competencies in molecular biology, microscopy,NGS和蛋白质工程的经验和expertise in biotechnology entrepreneurship that is rare among academic labs, allowing us to identify more important unmet needs and deploy solutions more rapidly.

The successful candidate will be expected to invent transformative technologies, generate valuable intellectual property, publish papers in Science, Nature, and Cell, and to contribute actively to realizing the impact of his or her inventions, for example through collaborations with industry or company creation. The following are some examples of areas of current interest, but applications from candidates interested in other areas, such as regenerative medicine or cell therapies, are encouraged:

Viral Vectors: Many of the most promising first-in-class therapies to be approved recently are in vivo gene therapies, in which genetic material is delivered to a living patient using engineered viruses. Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs), the vectors commonly used in gene therapies, suffer from major drawbacks including the presence of neutralizing antibodies in a large fraction of patients; a high cost of production; a small packaging capacity; liver toxicity; and an inability to cross the blood-brain barrier. We are working to engineer novel viral vectors with larger packaging capsids, a wider range of patient applicability, and new integrated safety features, to enable the next generation of gene therapies.

Diagnostics: In order to develop therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, it is necessary to diagnose those disease long before the onset of symptoms. Various small molecules, nucleic acids, or proteins may facilitate the early detection of neurodegenerative diseases from the blood, but these biomarkers are often at very low concentration because they do not efficiently cross the blood-brain barrier. We have developed a new method for detecting biomarkers in the blood-stream at previously inaccessible concentrations, and now seek to apply this as a diagnostic technology for a variety of different diseases. We believe that this technology also holds promise for the detection of infectious diseases, or for the detection of pathogens in agriculture or veterinary medicine.

Contextual Transcriptomics: Single cellRNAsequencing has revolutionized the field of genomics by allowing us to interrogate the diversity of cell types in tissues. However, these approaches require the tissue to be dissociated, and thereby discard the spatial and temporal context associated with those cell types. We have recently invented Slide-seq, a method for profiling the spatial distribution ofRNAin tissue with single cell resolution. Essentially, this method enables us to take 20,000 images of a piece of tissue – one image for each gene – in a single biochemical assay. We are now applying this to study spatial patterns of gene expression in many systems, ranging from the T cell microenvironment in lung cancer to the organization of projection neurons in the brain.

Key responsibilities

These include but are not limited to:

Identifying a major unmet need in biology or medicine that could be addressed with biotechnology.
Devising a program of research to create a biotechnology to address the unmet need.
Independently conducting experiments and analyzing results related to the program of research.
Writing grant applications and giving pitches to philanthropists to support the program of research. (The postdoctoral fellow will not ordinarily need to obtain money for his/her own research projects, but will be expected to participate in raising money for future research projects.)
Forming and pursuing collaborations with other academic labs.
Maintaining high-quality lab notes and maintaining the central lab inventory.
Reporting on a regular basis to the Group Leader of the Applied Biotechnology Laboratory
Presenting results at lab meetings and at international conferences.
Writing up results and publishing papers in major, internationally recognized journals.
协助培训研究生和其他members of the laboratory.
In addition, as necessary or desired, the postholder will have the opportunity to consult for external companies on topics related to their research, and to pitch their ideas to investors and to participate in the technology transfer process.
Key experience and competencies
The post holder should embody and demonstrate our core Crick values: bold, imaginative, open, dynamic and collegial, in addition to the following qualifications, experience and competencies:

Essential:

PhD in bioengineering, molecular biology, chemical engineering or similar
Significant experience in fields such as molecular biology (cloning, recombinant protein production), protein engineering, next-generation sequencing, microscopy, cell culture, and animal research.
Motivation to perform cutting-edge engineering with a focus on translation
A demonstrated ability to generate and pursue independent research ideas.
Good organisational skills, ability to work independently and capable of interacting within a group

Desirable:

A track record of publishing high-impact papers.
Confident presenting ability

ABOUTUS

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome,UCL(University College London), Imperial College London and King’s College London.

The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016, it moved into a brand new state-of-the-art building in central London, which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under one roof in Europe.

Please note: all offers of employment are subject to successful screening and continuous eligibility to work in the United Kingdom

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

We welcome applications from all backgrounds. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, pregnancy, age, disability, or civil partnership, marital or family status. We particularly welcome applications from people who are Minority Ethnic as they are currently underrepresented in the Crick at this level.

Diversity is essential to excellence in scientific endeavour. It increases breadth and perspective, leading to more innovation and creativity. We want the Crick to be a place where everyone feels valued and where diversity is celebrated and seen as part of the foundation for our Institute’s success.

The Crick is committed to creating equality of opportunity and promoting diversity and inclusivity. We all share in the responsibility to actively promote dignity, respect, inclusivity and equal treatment and it is our aim to ensure that these principles are reflected and implemented in all strategies, policies and practices.

Postdoctoral Training Fellow – Applied Biotechnology Laboratory

Francis Crick Institute

London, United Kingdom