Research Fellow in Microfabrication of Medical Sensors

About us

The Research Fellow will work on a project to develop a novel method termed Transurethral Shear Wave Elastography (TU-SWE) for providing efficacious diagnosis of prostate cancer as well as providing a monitoring tool for existing focal ablation therapies for prostatic tumours. To this end we will develop a disposable transurethral probe. The project is a multi-disciplinary effort at the interface of three engineering disciplines and medical sciences. It involves four departments at UCL and two international collaborators. The Research Felllow will have access to some of the best research facilities worldwide and the opportunity to be trained in quality management and regulatory requirements for clinical translation of medical devices. They will work alongside experts in biomedical ultrasound, medical devices, medical imaging and clinical uro-oncology. The primary aim is to develop a device from the current proof-of-concept stage to a pre-clinical level required ahead of a! clinical pilot study.

About the role

The post holder will work on the development and testing of the receiver sensors in the TU-SWE probe. The receivers in the TU-SWE probe will be an array of capacitive micro-machined sensors that detect the dynamic shear stresses generated by shear waves reaching the urethral wall. The design takes advantage of batch processing with high throughput for reduced manufacturing costs. The fabrication of the sensing elements will be done at the facilities of the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) using micro-manufacturing techniques. Another task is to test the performance of the pre-clinical TU-SWE system, comprised of the pre-clinical TU-SWE prototype and the image reconstruction software (developed by a collaborator).

About you

For this position you have to be an Electronics/Mechanical Engineer with training and expertise in cleanroom operations and microfabrication techniques such as those for BioMEMs, micro-patterning and microfluidic applications, photoresist processes including wafer spinners, mask aligners and microscopy. Familiarity with equipment needed for generating PDMS replicas of the moulds for our sensors would be desirable. These include balances, vacuum pumps, ovens, and plasma cleaners.

What we offer

For information about our rewards and benefits please visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/reward-and-benefits.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.

We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce. These include people from Black, Asian, and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people and LGBTQI+ people.

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