Research Assistant in Clonal Haematopoiesis

About the role

This is an exciting opportunity to work with a team of dedicated and expert researchers on Clonal Haematopoiesis and its role in cancer and age-related inflammatory disease.

The postholder will be part of the team that researches clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) and its impact on age-related diseases. This post is a wonderful opportunity to gain exposure to both clinical and laboratory research work, and is ideal for someone who is interested in translational research.

For 20% of their time the postholder will work with clinicians to help recruit patients to our study. Experience of patient-facing work, a good understanding of ethics and HTA legislation is required. Prior GCP training/ certification is an advantage.

They will also gain skills in genomic and cytometry techniques, including making next generation sequencing libraries, single cell multi-omics, flow cytometry and computational pipelines to analyse these data.

We are seeking a skilled, and enthusiastic candidate to join our team. The successful applicant will be someone who is interested in, and/ or has experience working with members of the public, enjoys working on a team, has excellent communication skills, and who has an open and self-motivated approach to challenges and learning. In addition to having a solid base in human biology, biochemistry and genomics, the successful candidate will have excellent organisation, team working and numeracy skills.  A desire and aptitude for computational data analysis (training will be provided) will be an advantage.

We are especially interested in helping promising researchers develop their career and encourage applications from those who see this post as a launchpad for their scientific ambitions.  Our group has an excellent track record in helping our research assistants secure PhD positions (a 67% success rate so far!).

This is a full time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 31st August 2025.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria 

• Bachelor degree in a relevant biological sciences project.
• Have experience of working in a laboratory environment
• Knowledge of cell culture, basic molecular biology (PCR, qPCR) and cell separation techniques, next generation sequencing technologies, genetics and basic concepts in blood cancers.
• Demonstrate evidence of good numerical and reasoning skills, expertise in basic IT (Word/ Excel/ Powerpoint) and data analysis tools, good presentation skills, communication skills (written & verbal), and IT skills.
• Possess scientific integrity and understanding of the importance of study design, power calculations and statistical analysis.
• Ability to work independently and integrate with colleagues, work as part of a team, and undertake a share of group tasks.
• Proven ability to manage own research and administrative activities efficiently, prioritise, meet targets and deadlines, and keep clear and well organised laboratory notes and records.

Desirable criteria

• Have experience of working in a clinical/ patient-facing environment and GCP trained/ certified.
• Experience in tissue culture or handling of primary patient samples, basic molecular biology techniques (PCR, qPCR), preparation of NGS libraries amd Illumina NGS platforms.
• Experience of bioinformatics including working in Unix environment, working in R or Python.

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