Research Fellow at The Brighton and Sussex Medical School

Hours: full time or part time hours considered up to a maximum of 1.0 FTE.

Requests for flexible working options will be considered (subject to business need).

Contract: Fixed term for 3 years.

Closing date: 04 August 2023. 

Applications must be received by midnight of the closing date.

Expected Interview date: To be confirmed

Expected start date: July – September 2023

Applications are invited for the post of Research Fellow in Cancer Research (non-clinical) at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). We are looking to recruit a scientist with a strong background in cancer research, or a related discipline to work on a recently awarded Blood Cancer UK project grant.

The appointee will join our internationally recognised haemato-oncology research team; a successful collaborative partnership between clinicians & scientists based at BSMS. The laboratory-based ‘Pepper Team’ (https://pepper.science) and computational systems biology ‘Mitchell Team’ (https://mitchell.science) currently represent the two largest groupings. Our main areas of expertise are in modelling the tumour microenvironment, understanding the role of NF-kB in disease progression and the development of drug resistance and the pre-clinical evaluation of novel targeted agents. The successful candidate will benefit from our strong network of national and international collaborators and will be part of the vibrant Haematology Research Group, spanning BSMS and the University of Sussex (https://www.bsms.ac.uk/research/clinical-and-experimental-medicine/cancer/hrg/haematology-research-group.aspx).

We are seeking a motivated & enthusiastic candidate with a PhD in a relevant area, who can demonstrate technical expertise in a range of laboratory techniques, ideally including tissue culture and flow cytometry. Computational skills are also desirable but the opportunity for training in computational biology will be available.

Project title: Using NF-κB ‘fingerprints’ to identify therapeutic vulnerabilities within subsets of B cell malignancies.

Although there have been major advances in treatments for B cell malignancies, heterogeneity both between and within diseases contribute to the variable responses to current therapies. Therefore, there is an urgent need for personalised strategies to accurately predict the optimal drug/drug combination for an individual patient. Aberrant NF-κB transcription is a major player in B cell malignancies and is activated by numerous signalling pathways within the tumour microenvironment, resulting in proliferation and upregulation of anti-apoptotic proteins. We have developed a novel flow cytometry-based NF-κB ‘fingerprinting’ assay and demonstrated distinct expression patterns between and within different CLL patient samples & DLBCL cell lines. We propose that these different NF-κB fingerprints can help us to identify therapeutic vulnerabilities in individual tumours. The project will generate experimental data, using primary CLL cells & DLBCL cell lines, to create a library of NF-κB signalling states, and then use this library to inform mechanistic mathematical modelling/simulations. The ultimate goal of this interdisciplinary project is to exploit computational models to accurately identify the ‘right drug(s) for the right patient’ and then test these predictions in the laboratory using patient-derived tumour samples.

For informal enquires, please contact: Professor Chris Pepper (c.pepper@bsms.ac.uk), Professor Andrea Pepper (a.pepper@bsms.ac.uk) or Dr Simon Mitchell (s.a.mitchell@BSMS.ac.uk) at Brighton and Sussex Medical School.

The University is committed to equality and valuing diversity, and applications are particularly welcomed from women and black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts in Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine and Mathematics (STEMM) at Sussex.

For full details and how to apply see our vacancies page,

www.brighton.ac.uk/jobs          www.bsms.ac.uk

The University of Sussex values the diversity of its staff and students and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds.