Research Associate in Translational Immunology

About Us

King’s College London is an internationally renowned university delivering exceptional education and world-leading research. We are dedicated to driving positive and sustainable change in society and to realising our vision of making the world a better place.

The Lord Lab is based in the Centre for Gene Therapy and Regenerative Medicine (CGTRM) within the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine. We are seeking to recruit a postdoctoral research associate to contribute to an innovative translational immunology programme led by Professor Graham Lord and funded by an industrial partner.

About the role

This postdoctoral position sits within a multidisciplinary research programme aimed at identifying therapeutic antigen targets for antibody-based treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The project leverages the immunosuppressive properties of regulatory T cells (Tregs) to develop precision medicine strategies for IBD patients, with strong commercial potential.

The successful candidate will identify the most suppressive Treg subsets within IBD lesions and translate these findings into clinically relevant applications. This will involve mapping immune subtype gene expression across publicly available datasets, validating findings in gut tissue from IBD patients, and applying spatial proteomics to localise surface markers within tissue architecture.

The role offers an exceptional opportunity to build an independent research profile at the forefront of translational immunology, collaborating closely with Professor Peter Irving, gastroenterology specialist at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, alongside immunologists and bioinformaticians. We are looking for a motivated individual with strong communication skills and a genuine enthusiasm for translational immunology research.

This is a full time (35 hours a week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 30/06/27.

While some flexible or hybrid working may be considered, regular in-person onsite will be required. 

About You

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

Essential criteria

• PhD in Immunology, Systems Immunology, or a related discipline *
• Experience in cellular and molecular immunology techniques, including flow cytometry, ex vivo Treg expansion, intracellular cytokine assays, and functional immune assays
• Experience working with human clinical samples
• Experience in designing and optimising antibody panels and implement quality control for IMC
• Experience in image analysis and single-cell multi-omic data analysis, with advanced programming skills in R and/or Python
• Ability to work independently while contributing effectively to multidisciplinary collaborative research, with excellent communication and scientific writing skills

* Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6.

Desirable criteria

• Post-doctoral or equivalent industry experience in immunology
• Experience in analysing high-dimensional and spatial data, including imaging mass cytometry (IMC)
• Experience applying machine learning methods to analyse biomedical dataset

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