Vacancies
These vacancies are listed in order of closing date. Further queries about these vacancies should be directed to the employer. This page is updated regularly, so please do return soon to see what else has been added!
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Closing dates in February
Professor or Associate Professor in Microbial Pathogenesis Applicants are sought who have high-profile research activities in any area of research that contributes to the understanding and/or control of human infections; example areas might be host-pathogen interactions, mechanistic analysis of microbial virulence, antibiotic resistance, omics/systems analysis of genetic regulation in pathogens, and pathogen physiology. Appointees will be able to contribute to a growing collaboration with the Warwick Medical School in the domain of infection and immunity. In addition to the above post, we also invite applications from outstanding scientists who either already hold Research Fellowships or are seeking a top-class institution that will host an application for such a Fellowship. The new School of Life Sciences will provide an exciting and highly supportive environment in which researchers can develop highly productive careers. Professor - Salary negotiable. Associate Professor £45,336 - £52,556. Click here for more information. |
Two Medical Research Council-funded PhD studentships The Institute offers a unique environment to those wishing to undertake interdisciplinary study and gain exposure to research within departments pursuing a highly acclaimed international research agenda. Successful candidates will be based in one of the Research Departments of the Institute, namely Epidemiology and Public Health, Infection and Population Health, or Primary Care and Population Health. Student stipend available. Click here for more information. |
Infection Surveillance Officer The NHSBT/Health Protection Agency (HPA) Epidemiology Unit is a small team of scientists and public health professionals providing epidemiology and surveillance expertise of blood and tissues to both NHSBT and the HPA. The team is based in Colindale with office space in both the Clinical Directorate of NHSBT and the Immunisation, Hepatitis and Blood Safety Department of HPA Colindale. We have an opportunity for an enthusiastic scientist to work as an Infection Surveillance Officer in the Epidemiology Unit. This is a fixed term contract but will give the right person an opportunity to gain experience in national surveillance systems together with opportunities to work with colleagues in the HPA and NHSBT. You'll have a major responsibility for national databases to monitor infections in blood donors and transfusion transmitted infections, and for horizon scanning for emerging infections. You will be working closely with Epidemiologists, Clinicians and Microbiologists and will also be expected to support our research into the epidemiology of infectious diseases through statistical analyses and presenting data to a range of audiences. Click here for more information. |
Research Assistant Applications are invited for a pre-doctoral Research Assistant in the laboratory of Professor Robin Weiss in UCL's Division of Infection and Immunity. The successful applicant will join a laboratory that aims to develop neutralizing antibodies that prevent infection by a wide variety of HIV-1 strains. These monoclonal antibodies can serve as templates for screening antigens that may be developed as vaccine components to elicit protective humoral immunity and also as possible microbicides. The post holder will undertake a project to characterise llama antibodies with anti-HIV-1 activity under the direct supervision of a post-doctoral researcher and actively contribute to the organisation and smooth-running of the laboratory. £27,907 - £29,435. Click here for more information. |
Advanced Research Assistant - Maternity Cover Applications are invited for a maternity cover post for Advanced Research Assistant in the Malaria Genetics Team, lead by Dominic Kwiatkowski. A major focus in the team is to develop public health tools to identify, understand, and control antimalarial drug resistance, based on next generation sequencing of malaria parasites from clinical samples collected throughout the malaria-endemic world. The primary purpose of this role is to provide DNA sample management and quality control, library creation methods R&D, data management, and collaborator support to the Plasmodium and Anopheles genome variation projects. The principal roles of the job include maintaining a sample tracking and archiving system, performing pre-sequencing sample quality control, supporting the optimization of DNA library creation for the Illumina platform, as well as submission and tracking of samples in in sequencing pipelines, database management, and communication with all project stakeholders. £21,485 to £28,489. Click here for more information. |
Transmission Electron Microscope Specialist The successful candidate will join a dynamic group mainly focussing on molecular and cellular aspect of the pathogenesis of enteropathogenic (EPEC) and enterohemorragic (EHEC) Escherichia coli, Citrobacter rodentium, and Legionella pneumophila. You must hold a BSc degree or equivalent vocational qualifications and have experience of working as a Transmission Electron Microscope Specialist. A Master of Science degree is desirable. Experience of transmission and scanning electron microscopy techniques, including microscope operation, image acquisition and analysis and basic and advanced electron microscopy techniques, including sample preparation, immuno-cytochemistry techniques / immunogold labelling are essential. Experience of the day to day management of an electron microscopy unit and routine maintenance of TEM and associated equipment, are desirable. £27,400 - £31,300. Click here for more information. |
Research fellow in epidemiology, act consortium An opportunity has arisen for a research fellow in epidemiology to work for the ACT Consortium within the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. TheACT Consortium is a global research partnershipworking to maximize the public health impact of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs) through high quality, policy driven, multidisciplinary operational research. The post holder will be based at LSHTM and work as a member of the Consortium's core team but will also make visits to collaborating sites overseas. The post holder will work with the core statistician to develop the overall epidemiological and statistical components of the Consortium, and support specific projects. The core team will also help to integrate data from across the consortium so that it can be presented to policymakers with the aim of affecting policy change; this may involve some data management. £35,511 and £40,349. Click here for more information. |
Research Laboratory Technician A laboratory technician funded by a grant from the Wellcome Trust is available immediately within Prof Geoffrey L. Smith's laboratory in the Division of Virology to study the mechanisms by which vaccinia virus evades the host response to infection. The postholder will have 2 main duties: 1. He/she will be responsible for the smooth running and organisation of the laboratory by the provision of tissue culture and the ordering and stocking of supplies; 2. He/she will undertake a research project investigating how vaccinia virus evades the host response to infection, and how manipulation of the genes encoding such proteins can lead to the development of more immunogenic poxvirus based vaccines. £23,661 - £26,629. Click here for more information. |
Research Associate/Fellow in Microbial Bioinformatics (Fixed-term) The successful candidate for this post will lead C. difficile bioinformatics in the Clostridia Research Group; a well established group at the forefront of C. difficile research and part of the Centre for Healthcare Associated Infection (CHAI). They will also be involved in the analysis of faecal microbiota in individuals recovering from Campylobacter jejuni enteritis, with and without postinfectious irritable bowel syndrome, as well as patients with diverticulitis. They will be expected to attend the BRU Friday seminars and to interact with and assist other members of the BRU with analysis of complex datasets related to infection. Candidates should hold a PhD (or shortly due to be awarded a PhD) or equivalent, in Bioinformatics or related area. £24,370 - £35,788. Click here for more information. |
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, malaria research and control, Act consortium policy liaison coordinator An opportunity has arisen for a lecturer or senior lecturer in malaria research and control to work on a full or part time basis as the Policy Liaison Coordinator for the Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACT) Consortium led by Prof David Schellenberg. The post holder will be based at LSHTM and be a senior member of the ACT Consortium core team. The ACT Consortium, coordinated through the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and has partners throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. The secretariat and core scientists are based at LSHTM and support 26 projects in 10 countries. The Consortium's vision is to support evidence-based policy making and implementation activities so that the delivery and effectiveness of ACTs is optimized. In order to achieve this, the Consortium is establishing a mechanism, referred to as SCALE (Syntheses, Collaboration, and Analyses for Liaising Evidence effectively). £41,477 - £57,621. Click here for more information. |
Research Assistant / Postdoctoral Research Associate You will help develop and implement low-cost diagnostic techniques for a range of poultry diseases in Ethiopia and will be required to spend approximately 6 months in both Ethiopia and the UK. You should have a degree in a relevant biological science and experience producing research outputs. For appointment at Postdoctoral level you should have a PhD. This multi-disciplinary project is funded by BBSRC and DFID as part of the Combating Infectious in Livestock Initiative (CIDLiD) and is led by the University of Liverpool, collaborating with the Universities of Edinburgh and Nottingham and ILRI and EIAR (Ethiopia). The post is available for upto1 year. £26,004 - £31,020. Click here for more information. |
Consultant in Communicable Disease Control The post holder will work with the other members of the Unit and be jointly responsible for dealing with the effective surveillance, prevention and control of communicable disease and the health aspects of non-communicable environmental hazards. The post holder will provide specialist advice and leadership locally to Primary Care Trusts, Hospitals and Local Authorities and agree with them how health protection incidents including outbreaks of diseases and non infectious hazards are managed. The post holder will be involved in supporting an expert tier out of hours service involving a 1 in 4 on call rota. The post holder will also carry out surveillance, co-ordination, support and implementation of certain key national programmes locally likely to be: HCAI, Blood Borne Infections, Research and Development. This will require effective strategic working and influencing with local partners, HPA Divisions and colleagues within the Unit. £74,504 - £100,446. Click here for more information. |
Research Assistant A Research Assistant position is available at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford in Dr Reyes-Sandoval's group. The research programme focuses on developing a malaria vaccine using recombinant viruses to target the pre-erythrocytic stage of P. vivax through the induction of cytotoxic lymphocytes and antibodies. You will perform the pre-clinical work to assess efficacy of new vaccine candidates, as well as the development of new vaccine candidates in the form of proteins or recombinant viral vectors. You will have a good degree in biological sciences or chemistry together with a keen interest in malaria and immunology of infectious diseases. Previous laboratory experience in immunological techniques to assess immune responses, especially flow cytometry, ELISPOT and ELISA is also essential. £25,854 - £30,870. Click here for more information. |
Postdoctoral Research Associate We are seeking to appoint a Research Associate to work in the research group of Professor Jonathan Hodgkin, investigating surface biochemistry and bacterial infection in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Applicants should possess a PhD, or be shortly expecting to be awarded a PhD, and should have experience in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics. Familiarity with C. elegans and/or mass spectrometry are desirable qualifications for this post. This full-time post is funded by the Medical Research Council for up to three years in the first instance and is based at the Department of Biochemistry, South Parks Road, Oxford. £29,099 - £35,788. Click here for more information. |
Environmental Health Group Research into Use Officer The Environmental Health Group (EHG) is concerned with environmental health in developing countries, focusing on the basic problems of water supply, sanitation and the faecal-oral disease cycle. The EHG seeks a dynamic Policy and Communications Officer for the newly formed SHARE research consortium programme. SHARE aims to generate knowledge to improve systems for sanitation and hygiene delivery. SHARE will directly contribute to accelerated and equitable progress on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for sanitation. The post holder will have a strong understanding of international development, global health issues and the sanitation and hygiene sector(s). He/she will have a track record of engaging and influencing key sector stakeholders and producing compelling communications for a range of audiences - especially policy-makers and practitioners. The post-holder will report to the Policy and Communications Manager but will work closely with other members of the EHG as well as staff from across the four other SHARE partners. £30,915. Click here for more information. |
Career Development Fellow Mycobacterial persistence is linked to two of the major obstacles against the eradication of tuberculosis: a large reservoir of people without clinical symptoms and complications in the treatment with the majority of antibiotics. We are currently establishing a model of persistence that considers one of the most important aspects of mycobacterial lifestyle: intracellularity. We hypothesized that mycobacteria able to survive within host cells will likely display metabolic, phenotypical and morphological characteristics of mycobacteria able to persist. This project will develop, characterize and validate this model as a new dynamic system to address questions in the field of mycobacterial persistence. We are looking for motivated candidates with experience in live cell imaging, image analysis and cellular models of infection. A high level of self-motivation and the ability to work in a young and international team are essential for this position. Knowledge in image processing or informatics and cell culture techniques is an advantage. £27,513. Click here for more information. |
Closing dates in March
Scientist, Vaccine Research Group The Vaccine Research Group is primarily involved with technical and scientific support of the manufacture of the UK licensed anthrax vaccine and to investigate immune responses to anthrax vaccines. The Group also undertake a number of commercial projects on behalf of other vaccine manufacturers. The Group has extensive experience in reagent provision, protein purification, assay development and operate to a number of Quality Systems including GLP and GMP where required. An opportunity has arisen within VRG for a scientist with experience of immunoassay and protein chemistry techniques to support the goals of the group. The post holder will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team and would be expected to take ownership of discrete packages of work. They will contribute to the provision of reagents required for the assays which underpin the research goals of the group as well as assisting with the development, validation and troubleshooting of immunoassays. £25,528 to £34,189. Click here for more information. |
MRes/PhD Studentship: Investigating Copper Homeostasis In A Human Fungal Pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans is an opportunist fungal pathogen that causes disease in the immuno-compromised, such as patients with AIDS, and is increasingly recognised as an emerging infection of immuno-competent individuals. C. neoformans has evolved numerous traits that allow it to survive within the human body, many of which rely on metals, and particularly copper. Due to its potential toxicity copper is trafficked via pathways to different cellular destinations in a eukaryote such as C. neoformans. The investigation of copper homeostasis in a pathogenic fungus will therefore not only enable the basic principles of copper homeostasis to be uncovered but will also provide insight into designing therapies that target copper as a way to treat cryptococcosis. Student stipend available. Click here for more information. |
PhD Studentship in the Clinical and Experimental Sciences Project Title: Analysis of the microbial community of the upper respiratory tract to support the development of effective vaccine policy. At least one studentship will be available starting October 2012. The student will undertake analysis of the microbial community in the upper respiratory tract and of bacterial isolates from carriage and disease. The student will investigate the microbial community and individual genomes for differences in serotype locus sequence, SNP's, the presence of indels, and the overall genetic relatedness of isolates and the microbial population. In addition to generic training, the student will receive focused training in general clinical microbiology, molecular epidemiology, next generation sequencing and bioinformatics. There may also be opportunities for training in the laboratories of both national and international collaborators. Student stipend available. Click here for more information. |
Postdoctoral Research Fellow We are seeking to recruit a research-orientated, motivated and effective scientist to advance research in areas of viral pathogenesis, evolution and epidemiology, particularly in the nature of the virus's interaction with its host and the selection pressures this entails. The post can provide a stepping stone towards future fellowship applications, allowing the applicant to pursue their research interests within the overall remit of the group's research activities. Applicants should have a background in virology or microbiology research to PhD level or beyond, experience in basic molecular biology techniques and bioinformatics and most importantly an active interest in virus pathogenesis and evolution. £30,122 - £35,938. Click here for more information. |
MRC MRes/PhD Studentship Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection: oestrogen and the epithelial defences of the urinary tract Newcastle University Our hypothesis is that decreased oestrogen is associated with reduced vaginal innate antimicrobial, specifically β-defensin, defences and this increases the susceptibility of the vaginal and bladder epithelia to infection. However oestrogen as a therapeutic treatment is limited by concerns regarding cancer risk. Exploring how the uro-genital innate response is influenced by oestrogen in vitro and in vivo will help us to understand the mechanisms by which oestrogen helps protect against rUTI and facilitate the design of novel therapies without hormonal side-effects. We will challenge immortalised vaginal cells, cultured with and without oestrogen, with UPEC strains and determine, and compare, the downstream signalling pathways using DNA microarrays and qPCR TLR profiler arrays. Once candidate regulatory pathways are established, these will be confirmed using qPCR and western analyses in primary vaginal epithelial cells cultured from biopsies obtained from pre and post-menopausal women. The immortalised and primary cell models will be utilised to investigate how pathways regulating specifically the antimicrobial response can be manipulated. The student will receive training in eukaryote cell culture, bacterial cell culture and general molecular techniques including analysis of microarray data. Student stipend available. Click here for more information. |
Research Scientist The Research Scientist will work on SYBARIS (http://www.sybaris-fp7.eu), a multi-institution EU funded project, aimed at identifying biomarkers of anti-microbial drug resistance via a systems biology analysis of fungal pathogen interactions with the human immune system. The successful candidate will undertake research to formulate predictive models and discovery of biomarkers of antifungal drug resistance. This will be achieved through the integration and meta-analysis of publicly available and consortium datasets related to fungal-host interaction in immunocompromised and immunocompetent fungal infection patients and disease-free individuals. The consortium consists of seven wet lab and computational partners and EBI where the project is coordinated and where data analysis and integration will be performed. Click here for more information. |
PhD Studentship Mechanistic insights into colonisation and infection of skin by Acinetobacter baumannii In this project, we will investigate the relationship between antibiotic resistance and skin infection with Acinetobacter baumannii, using a range of techniques, including molecular bacteriology, epithelial cell culture and specific and global gene expression analyses. This project will be based within a multi-disciplinary research team with secondments to work with Professor Petersen at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis. The Piddock team investigates mechanisms of antibiotic resistance; recent work has revealed that carbapenem resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii can be conferred by an efflux pump. Pallen is Microbiology Theme lead in the SRMRC and has established interests in the genomic epidemiology of Acinetobacter. The Petersen team has expertise in skin infection models. Student stipend available. Click here for more information. |
PhD Studentship Molecular ecology and control of carriage of Staphylococcus aureus in patients with serious trauma Infection in military and civilian patients with serious acute trauma caused by S.aureus is a significant clinical problem. Infection most often arises from endogenous carriage of S. aureus, present before injury, or is acquired in the hospital from an exogenous source. The study will follow the colonization of patients from the point of injury to and beyond the development of any infections caused by S. aureus. As close as possible to the time of injury the patients will be sampled at all potential carriage sites and then at regular intervals including any sites of infection (e.g. skin and soft tissue, ventilator associated pneumonia and catheter related blood stream infection). The diversity of staphylococci (in terms of species and strains) and major changes in surface microbiota will be characterized using culture and 16SrDNA profiling. The contribution of endogenous colonization to the genesis of S. aureus infection will be determined using molecular typing and this will inform intervention strategies, which will include conventional use of antimicrobials and a novel bacteriophage treatment. Student stipend available. Click here for more information. |