About us
University College London is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No. 1 in the UK for Research Power in Medicine as well as Health and Life Sciences (Research Excellence Framework 2021). UCL’s Faculty of Medical Sciences is research intensive, with a near-equal mix of internationally renowned clinical and non-clinical scientists, many of whom enjoy close contacts with various world-leading London hospitals.
This project is based both within the Institute of Infection, Immunity and Transplantation at the Pears Building at the Royal Free Campus and the Division of Medicine at the Rayne Building on the Bloomsbury campus in London. Both departments excel at interdisciplinary research, teaching and clinical practice with national and international impact. You will have the opportunity to work with leading academics within friendly and dynamic teams.
About the role
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) affect around 400 million people globally each year and often recur despite antibiotic treatment. Such frequent antibiotic use fuels the increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistance, meaning that better therapies are needed to treat UTIs and prevent their recurrence.
Many infections are exacerbated by the host immune response, and Dr Pollara’s lab deploys multiple strategies, including transcriptomic profiling, to elucidate these pathological pathways. UTIs have been largely studied in mice, but this model doesn’t fully reflect the biology of human UTI. To bridge this gap, Prof Jenny Rohn (UCL Division of Medicine) and her team have developed an advanced human urothelial microtissue model to better study UTI.
In this project, the successful candidate will work between Dr Pollara’s and Prof Rohn’s teams, using this microtissue model to explore the response of the urothelium to infection, and how it changes after recurrent infection. The project will involve both laboratory and in silico work. Experimental work involving the urothelial model will include tissue culture, microscopy, cell biology, microbiology and immunological assays. In parallel, the post holder will undertake bioinformatic analyses of bulk and single-cell host transcriptomic datasets generated in this post as well as external datasets of human urothelial tissue.
The overall aim is to explore whether repeated infections result in excessive and tissue-damaging inflammation, and to define the mediators of this response so that they can be blocked, alongside antibiotics, to achieve more sustained treatment of UTI. This knowledge could pave the way for novel therapeutic approaches.
About you
- You will have a biomedical subject degree (Masters-level 2.1 minimum) related to the position or equivalent level of knowledge and experience.
- You will have an eagerness to learn new techniques, the ability to work across disciplines (laboratory and bioinformatic) and to liaise with multiple collaborator groups.
- You will have passion, drive, curiosity and evidence of past excellent performance in academia.
- You will have the ability to organize your time well, take meticulous experimental notes and communicate about your work in both writing and orally.
- Desirable would be some experience in some of the following techniques: working with mammalian organoids or advanced 3D culture systems, confocal microscopy or other advanced imaging techniques, microbiology techniques, performing transcriptional profiling data analyses.
What we offer
As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:
- 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days)
- Additional 5 days’ annual leave purchase scheme
- Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
- Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
- Immigration loan
- Relocation scheme for certain posts
- On-site nursery
- On-site gym
- Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
- Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service
- Discounted medical insurance
