Postdoctoral Research Associate

Grade UE07- £40,497 to £48,149 per annum

Institute of Infection and Immunology Research

School of Biological Sciences, College of Science and Engineering

Full time- 35hrs per week

Fixed Term- until 31^st January 2027 

The Opportunity:

African trypanosomes are responsible for human disease but their major impact is on livestock in sub Saharan Africa. Here they cause the disease ‘nagana’, a fatal wasting of livestock. In the course of infection trypanosomes moderate their parasitaemia by quorum sensing to generate replication arrested ‘stumpy forms’, which prevent rapid host death and are pre-adapted for transmission by tsetse flies, the disease vector. This generates a chronic infection. However, in the field, trypanosome infections are often comprised of more than strain or species of the parasite as different parasite lines circulate among livestock herds and in game animals in the same geographical region. In experimental infections our laboratory has demonstrated that over the course of several weeks of coinfection between trypanosome species in rodents, the parasites become adapted to reduce their production of stumpy forms. This helps to them to compete in terms of parasite numbers with the coinfecting strain in the livestock host but potentially reduces their capacity for effective transmission by tsetse flies. We have isolated a number of selected parasite lines from coinfections and plan to understand how they have adapted after competition in a coinfection, thereby becoming more virulent. This project will seek to understand the basis of increased virulence after long term coinfection by a combination of genomic, transcriptomic and laboratory manipulation of the selected parasite lines.

• Relevant information can be found within our lab website (https://biology.ed.ac.uk/the-matthews-lab) and recent publications (e.g. Oldrieve et al, Nature Communications, 2024; PMID 39622840)

This post is advertised as full-time (35 hours per week), however, we are open to considering part-time or flexible working patterns.  We are also open to considering requests for hybrid working (on a non-contractual basis) that combines a mix of remote and regular on-campus working.  

Your skills and attributes for success: 

• Strong bioinformatic expertise to interrogate parasite genomes and transcriptomes 
• Experience working with CL3 pathogens, especially African trypanosomes, and genetically manipulating them
• Ability to interpret and present data orally and in writing
• Capacity to work as a team, helping operation of the laboratory or the projects of other lab members collaboratively if needed
• Willingness to work with in vivo infections, including animal handling and parasite phenotype analysis in infections.

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