Postdoctoral Training Fellow - Cell Death & Immunity, Prof P. Meier (ID 571)

Job Details 

Under the leadership of Professor Pascal Meier, we are seeking to appoint a new Postdoctoral Training Fellow to join the Cell Death and Immunity Laboratory to study the phenomenon of ‘Necroptosis’. 

Necroptosis has huge potential to overcome tumour resistance to apoptosis, and because it is more immunogenic than apoptosis, flagging up tumours for immunological attack represents a promising strategy to trigger anti-tumour immunity. Necroptosis is mediated by MLKL, a membrane permeabilizing pseudo-kinase that translocates to the plasma membrane upon its activation. While necroptosis signalling has attracted much attention for its therapeutic potential, little is known how necroptosis is regulated, and how MLKL translocates to hotspots at the plasma membrane to trigger necroptosis. 

The aim of this proposal is to identify the mechanism through which active MLKL translocates to the plasma membrane where it accumulates at hotspots to cause lytic cell death. The successful candidate will also identify the intercellular structures at which MLKL accumulates and characterise their contribution to necroptosis signalling and membrane rupture, and how this influences treatment outcome.

For general information on Post Doc's at The ICR can be found here.

Key Requirements

We are looking for a highly motivated and creative molecular biologist with a strong background in imaging and cell signalling. Experience in intra-cellular trafficking will be beneficial.

The ICR has a workforce agreement stating that Postdoctoral Training Fellows can only be employed for up  to 7 years as PDTF at the ICR, providing total postdoctoral experience (including previous employment at this level elsewhere) does not exceed 10 years 

Department/Directorate Information:

The Cell Death and Immunity team uses a combination of sophisticated genetic models and cancer organoids to understand the complex relationship between Cell Death and Immunity, and to develop novel therapeutic options. The Meier team identified that cell death mechanisms are tightly linked to immunity (Mol. Cell 2019, EMBO Mol. Med. 2020, Nat. Comms 2021). Further, the team discovered the molecular mechanism underpinning cell competition (Nat Comms 2020) and how to turn super-competitor cancer clones into losers.

The successful candidate will work within a multidisciplinary team focussed on understanding fundamental mechanisms of cell death and how lytic forms of cell death triggers a communication with the immune system. Our laboratories are fully equipped for cancer molecular biology and human cancer organoid tissue culture.

The Cell Death and Immunity team is part of The Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre at the ICR, within the Division of Breast Cancer Research, this is the first centre in the UK entirely devoted to breast cancer research. Our goal is to advance research into the causes, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.

https://www.icr.ac.uk/our-research/researchers-and-teams/professor-pascal-meier

We encourage all applicants to access the job pack attached for more detailed information regarding this role. For an informal discussion regarding the role, please contact pascal.meier@icr.ac.uk

We look forward to receiving applications from all candidates, wherever in the world they are currently based. We will select those who display the potential to become, or to support, the world leading cancer researchers of the future based on their application and performance at interview. However, we particularly welcome British applicants from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, as they are under-represented within the ICR and nationwide in STEM roles.