Postdoctoral Research Associate in cardio-immunology data science

King's College London; London; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading research university in London is seeking a postdoctoral research associate to contribute to a cardio-immunology research programme. The successful candidate will leverage data science expertise to analyze clinical datasets and enhance understanding of cardiovascular disease progression. A PhD and strong programming skills are required, along with the ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team. This full-time role is offered on a fixed-term contract for one year.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent experience in relevant area.
• Knowledge or interest in Natural Language Processing related to biomedical data.
• Programming skills in Python, R, or JavaScript.
• Experience in clinical informatics within large scale projects.
• Strong understanding of statistical methods and study design.
• Effective scientific writing and teamwork capabilities.
• Ability to manage research independently.

Responsibilities

• Apply advanced data science approaches to clinical datasets.
• Identify clinical and immunological predictors.
• Develop risk models and generate hypotheses.
• Manage specific work packages within a multi-disciplinary team.

Skills

Data science expertise

Knowledge in Natural Language Processing

Programming (Python, R, JavaScript)

Clinical informatics experience

Statistical methods

Scientific writing and data presentation

Research management

Education

PhD or equivalent experience

Job description

About Us

The School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences (SCMMS) provides an outstanding multi-disciplinary environment for the pursuit of cutting-edge cardiovascular and metabolic research. We study the fundamental molecular, cellular, and physiological processes that underly normal and abnormal cardiovascular and metabolic function and drive the translation of this strong basic science into advances in clinical practice. Our community of world-renowned researchers have access to state-of-the art core facilities and expertise, including facilities for high-throughput screening and high content imaging, multimodality in vivo imaging, proteomics, spatial and single-cell transcriptomics. As part of King's Health Partners, we have an excellent environment for basic-clinical interaction and a strong focus on mentoring and career development. The School hosts the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence at King's, which brings together a unique range of internationally recognised scientists and clinicians from across the School and King's College London.

More information: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/scmms

About The Role

This is an exciting opportunity for a postdoctoral research associate with expertise in data science to join the King's BHF Centre of Research Excellence and contribute to a growing cardio-immunology research programme. Inflammation is increasingly recognised as a key modifiable driver of adverse outcomes across a range of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), yet significant uncertainty remains regarding which disease contexts, patient populations, and time points are most amenable to therapeutic targeting.

This position will involve the application of advanced data science approaches to explore large-scale clinical datasets extracted from electronic health records, with the goal of understanding how inflammatory processes intersect with cardiovascular disease progression and outcomes. The successful candidate will work to identify key clinical and immunological predictors, develop risk models, and help generate new hypotheses to inform future therapeutic strategies. The role offers a unique opportunity to bridge data-driven insight with translational cardiovascular research in a highly interdisciplinary environment.

The Group's research is funded by peer-reviewed grants, including from the British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council and British Society for Heart Failure, as well as investigator-initiated commercial funding.

We are seeking a motivated and enthusiastic candidate to join our pre-clinical and translational research. The successful applicant will be expected to develop and undertake research of high quality consistent with the aims of the project. They will contribute to all facets of the lab, including managing specific work packages and working as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract for 1 year.

About You

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

Essential criteria

1. PhD or equivalent experience in relevant area.
2. Knowledge or interest in Natural Language Processing, ideally as applied to big biomedical data.
3. Programming using one or more of the following: Python, R, Javascript.
4. Clinical informatics experience in large scale academic projects and/or industry environment.
5. Strong grasp of study design, power calculations, and statistical methods, with scientific rigour in planning and interpreting experiments.
6. Skilled in scientific writing, data presentation, and teamwork; maintains accurate records and contributes to shared tasks.
7. Proven ability to manage own research, apply techniques independently, and adapt to changing project needs.

Desirable criteria

1. Experience of genomics and bioinformatic workflows.
2. Familiarity with biomedical ontologies and text mining on Electronic Health Records and biomedical literature
3. Knowledge of machine learning / deep learning with an interest in the application to Electronic Patient Records.

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 next page after you click "Apply Now". This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's. 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 advert. 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.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ' How we Recruit ' pages.