英国伦敦The Francis Crick Institute招收实验室科学家

Location: The Francis Crick Institute, Midland Road, London
Contract: Fixed-term, (15 Months), Full time
Salary: From £27,000 per annum with benefits, subject to skills and experience
Vacancy ID: 8265

Short summary

An exciting opportunity to accelerate a research project aimed to characterising a potentially new drug target for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The project, funded by Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK), is to assess whether boosting Wnt signalling by inhibiting Notum could alleviate AD’s symptoms, using mice as a model system. The successful applicant will support a post-doctoral fellow who is spearheading the project. You will join an active research team and benefit from the outstanding infrastructure and intellectual environment of the Francis Crick Institute.

Project scope

The main responsibility will be to ensure rapid and rigorous characterisation of Notum mutant mice. We are particularly interested in the role of this protein (an extracellular modulator of Wnt signalling, see reference below) in the brain, the liver and the blood-brain barrier. To achieve this, we are using a conditional allele (in house) and are generating new reporters by CRISPR (under way). The specific tasks will be determined in consultation with the principal investigator (JP Vincent) and the post-doc in charge of the project (Laura Schuhmacher). They will involve phenotypic characterisation, including expression analysis by Rt-PCR and RNA scope, synapse morphology analysis by confocal microscopy, and devising novel assays as required. It is expected that the successful applicant will contribute to the design and interpretation of the experiments. The successful applicant will also be asked to present his/her work at internal meetings. Previous experience with mice is desirable but not necessary. Basic skills in molecular biology and confocal imaging are needed. B.S. in a biology-related subject is also a requirement. There will be ample opportunities for training in specialised techniques.

Kakugawa, S., Langton, P.F., Zebisch, M.*, Howell, S., Chang, T.H., Liu, Y, Feizi, T., Bineva, G., O'Reilly, N., Snijder, A., Jones, Y. , Vincent, J.P. (2015) Notum deacylates Wnt proteins to suppress signalling activity. Nature, 519, 187-192.

About us

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King’s College London.

The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016 it moved into a new state-of-the-art building in central London which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under in one building in Europe.

The Francis Crick Institute will be world-class with a strong national role. Its distinctive vision for excellence includes commitments to collaboration; developing emerging talent and exporting it the rest of the UK; public engagement; and helping turn discoveries into treatments as quickly as possible to improve lives and strengthen the economy.

• If you are interested in applying for this role, please apply via https://goo.gl/aQxG48
• The closing date for applications is 12 August 2018 at 23:30.
• All offers of employment are subject to successful security screening and continuous eligibility to work in the United Kingdom.

Key words

Mouse biology
Wnt signalling
Alzheimer’s disease
Phenotypic analysis
Liver
Brain