Research Assistant in Epigenetics

About us:

This post will be based at the Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience at King’s College London within the Personalised Medicine team led by Dr Ahmad Al Khleifat. Our team currently include several staff and students and we have extensive experience in the development of genomic and bioinformatics tools and methods. We are part of the School of Neuroscience within the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN).

The IoPPN is a leading centre for mental health and neuroscience research in Europe. It produces more highly cited outputs (top 1% citations) on psychiatry and mental health than any other centre (SciVal 2023), and on this metric has risen from 16th (2014) to 4th (2023) in the world for highly cited neuroscience outputs. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), 90% of research at the IoPPN was deemed ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’ (3* and 4*). More info about the IoPPN are available here https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/about.

About the role:

We are recruiting a highly motivated Epigeneticist to join a collaborative initiative between King’s College London and leading industry partner. This programme aims to identify and validate potential targets for treatments for Motor Neurone Disease (MND) through comprehensive genomic research. By analysing large-scale epigenetics datasets, our objective is to validate potential therapeutic targets and study their underlying mechanisms to accelerate the development of effective MND treatments. The successful candidates will join a team of neuroscientists and computational experts at the King’s MND Care and Research Centre, where they will have a leading role in developing computational analysis methods and analysing large-scale genome-wide DNA methylation and genetic datasets comprising over 10,000 samples. The post will be based within the Drug Discovery and Trials Optimisation team led by Dr Ahmad Al Khleifat at the Department Clinical Neuroscience also working closely with Professor Jonathan Mill at the University of Exeter Medical School.

The postholder will work closely with Professor Jonathan Mill and Professor Alfredo Iacoangeli, in addition to collaborating with the members of King’s Motor Neurone Disease Care and Research Centre, The UK MND Institute, and large international consortia such as the EU JPND funded STRENGTH, and Project MinE consortia.

This is a part time post (80%), and you will be offered an a fixed term contract until 27 November 2026.

Research staff at King’s are entitled to at least 10 days per year (pro-rata) for professional development. This entitlement, from the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, applies to Postdocs, Research Assistants, Research and Teaching Technicians, Teaching Fellows and AEP equivalent up to and including grade 7. Visit the Centre for Research Staff Development for more information.

About you:

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

Essential criteria

MSC qualified in relevant subject area (e.g. bioinformatics, life sciences, biotechnology, biophysics, etc)

Up to date knowledge of NGS & long reads methylation pipelines

Programming in at least one language (Python, Java, Bash, Perl, R)

Proficient in Unix based systems

Publication records commensurate with grade

Experience working with large-scale DNA methylation datasets, including EPIC array and long-read sequencing data

Excellent communication (written & verbal) skills

Biomedical research experience

Desirable criteria

Up to date knowledge of machine learning methods applied to clinical or omics data

Up to date knowledge in long read methylation methods applied to clinical or omics data

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information:

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When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King’s guidance.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day.

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