Research Associate or Senior Research Associate in Spatial Omics and Systems Biology in early COPD

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity to join the new GSK–Oxford–Imperial Modelling-Informed Medicine Centre (MiMeC) and develop spatial omics and systems biology research for early Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). This is a unique opportunity for an ambitious biomedical engineer wishing to develop their research with a multidisciplinary focus, working at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, data science and biomedical modelling. This post is funded by Glaxo Smith Kline Research and Development Ltd.

You will be part of MiMeC, a new collaboration applying mechanistic and data-driven modelling to accelerate and improve the development of novel drugs, devices, and lifestyle interventions. The centre brings together scientists, engineers, clinicians, and data experts from Imperial College London, the University of Oxford, and GSK to establish a world-leading hub for model-informed medicine.

You will also be working alongside Prof Steven Niederer’s computational and Prof Saman Sadiquis clinical research groups at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London applying statistical, machine learning and simulation approaches to combine experimental and clinical data with physics and biology to study respiratory physiology, pathology, and therapies.

What we are looking for:

• A PhD and equivalent experience in Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, AI/ML, Computational Biology, or a related field
• Experience with transcriptomics/spatial omics, ML/statistics, and/or biological network modelling.
• Experience in developing and applying mechanistic models for physiological or treatment development
• Knowledge, first-hand experience, and technical proficiency of computational modelling techniques in healthcare or biomedical sciences, and in programming languages such as Python or Julia.
• Experience working with medical imaging in a research environment and proficiency in data preprocessing, analysis, and interpretation
• Experience in publishing open-source software and contributing to collaborative projects. 

What you would be doing:

• Developing and running pipelines for spatial transcriptomics and single-cell datasets
• Incorporating cytokine signalling, immune-cell interactions, and epithelial remodelling pathways into COPD progression models
• Linking network-omic models to ventilation and gas-exchange simulations in early COPD
• Identifying COPD endotypes by mapping cell–cell interactions, cytokine signalling and tissue remodelling pathways
• Translating biological insight into mechanistic network models for use in a multi-scale COPD model
• Working closely with imaging and airflow modelling colleagues to combine molecular and anatomical simulation frameworks
• Delivering open-source tools, reproducible code and high-quality publications
• Presenting findings to Imperial, Oxford and GSK stakeholders and contributing to collaborative project planning
• Secondments at GSK to test models on industrial datasets and align with drug-development questions

What we can offer you:

• Supporting you in developing your career into an independent researcher at a world-leading institution
• Working with the Cardiac Electro-Mechanics Research Group led by Prof. Steven Niederer
• Sector-leading salary and remuneration package (including 39 days off a year)

Further Information

The is a full time, fixed term role for 3 years with the possibility of an extension.

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