Research Fellow in CAR-T Analytics

About us

The UCL Division of Surgery and Interventional Science is a collaborative and cross-disciplinary environment where clinicians, engineers, allied health professionals and researchers are constantly striving for innovative approaches to treatment. This includes developing highly effective methods which go beyond the boundaries of conventional wisdom and treating each patient as an individual.

About the role

You will be employed on a Versus Arthritis Translational Award led by Professor John Counsell, developing in vivo CAR-T cell therapy for lupus and inflammatory arthritis using novel UCL lentiviral vector technologies, including targeted envelopes, and proprietary expression backbones. You will lead the in vivo preclinical work package, in which T cell-targeted vectors are administered intravenously to PBMC-humanised NSG mice to generate CD19 CAR-T cells directly within the animal. You will compare targeting envelopes and vector backbones for CAR-T generation efficiency, persistence, biodistribution and CD19+ target cell elimination.

Other:

• The advert will close on 4th November at 23:59 GMT, however we may close applications early if we receive a high volume of applications. Early application submission is recommended.
• Interview Date(s) TBC
• If you have any queries about the role, please contact Professor John Counsell on
• If you need reasonable adjustments or a more accessible format to apply for this job online or have any queries about the application process, please contact the HR Team on
• The UCL Ways of Working supports colleagues to be successful and happy at UCL through sharing expectations around how we work – please visit www.ucl.ac.uk/ways-of-working to find out more.

Closing an advert early: In the event we get a high number of applications, we may close the advert early before the published closing date. As a minimum we will keep all adverts open for 2 weeks.

About you

The postholder must have a PhD (awarded, or submitted/near completion) in molecular biology, bioengineering, gene therapy or a closely related discipline.

Hands-on experience of lentiviral vector engineering, production, purification and titration.

Experience of vector retargeting, including engineering of envelope glycoproteins and pseudotyping.

Experience of CAR potency assays (antigen-specific cytotoxicity/killing assays, cytokine release).

Publications and/or conference presentations in gene therapy, vector engineering or immunotherapy would be advantageous.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:

Visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/reward-and-benefits to find out more.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce.

These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women. Our department holds an Athena SWAN Silver award, in recognition of our commitment and demonstrable impact in advancing gender equality.

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