Research Fellow - Bioinformatics - Cancer Genome Metabolism and Proteomics Scientist

UCL; London; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job description

About us

The 2007 opening of the Cancer Institute in the Paul O'Gorman Building heralded a new era in cancer research and medicine at UCL. It fosters links between basic cancer researchers across Biomedicine, and with the clinical activities of our partner Hospitals (University College London Hospitals including Queen Square, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the Royal Free Hospital). The CI is a £40 million investment by UCL, The Wolfson Foundation, Children with Leukaemia and Atlantic Philanthropies. The overall grant income in 2007 was £37 million from the principal medical charities concerned with cancer (Cancer Research-UK [CR-UK]; Leukaemia Research Fund), other charities including the Wellcome Trust, and from government agencies such as the Medical Research Council. The Institute incorporates the activities of the new Cancer Clinical Research Facility (Cancer CRF, jointly developed with University College Hospital), and the CR-UK/UCL Clinical Trials Centre (CTC).

TRACERx is a UK-wide lung cancer evolution programme which started in 2014 and has to date recruited over 820 patients. It is the first longitudinal cancer genomics study that forms the first national UK consortium focused on deciphering cancer evolution over space and time. TRACERx involves multi-region sequence analyses of lung cancers (5000+ exomes and whole genomes in over 800 patients) from pre-invasive through to primary and metastatic disease setting, in order to understand cancer evolutionary life histories with detailed clinical annotation. The co-primary end points of the study are to investigate the relationship between intratumour heterogeneity and clinical outcomes, and to determine the impact of cancer therapies on intratumour heterogeneity. TRACERx has enabled additional analyses in the areas of immunology, circulating biomarkers, cancer cachexia and body composition, radiomics and tumour microenvironment. Future plans include tumour metabolic imaging and mass spectrometry metabolomics. TRACERx is supported by the excellent bioinformatics facilities already available in our Centre together with substantial investment in bioinformatics staff, data storage and computer processing power.

TRACERx has been highly successful, as of 2023 sequencing data from more than 400 patients have been fully analysed resulting in a flow of high-impact publications, including manuscripts in Nature, Cell, Science and New England Journal of Medicine. PEACE is a pan cancer national research autopsy programme in which post-mortem sampling allows access to tissue from all sites of metastasis, and to date has recruited over 390 patients and performed over 240 autopsies. PEACE aims to investigate the biological processes underpinning metastatic disease, including genomic and metabolic drivers of tumour dissemination, and failure of the adaptive immune system.

The combination of both TRACERx and PEACE with patient co-recruitment has established an unprecedented resource of multi-regional matched primary and metastatic tissue, and therefore facilitates tissue- and blood-based analyses from diagnosis to death. This is the first national autopsy programme at such scale with a consortium of high calibre scientists and clinicians focussed on various projects relevant to metastasis and drug resistance.

CANCAN is an international team of scientists with close collaborations tackling the challenges posed by cancer-associated cachexia, a debilitating wasting syndrome characterised by extensive weight loss. Supported by Cancer Grand Challenges, a global initiative addressing key issues in cancer research, it is funded by CRUK and the NIH (https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/cancan). The team focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying cancer-associated cachexia and developing therapeutic strategies that could reverse it.

About the role

We are seeking a collaborative and self-motivated computational post-doctoral fellow to work on cancer metabolism and blood proteomic data in a vibrant and highly collegiate environment. The candidate will be expected to develop and make use of bioinformatics techniques to investigate how metabolic dysregulation can drive metastatic disease progression and drug resistance. The project will leverage existing genomic and transcriptomic sequencing data from multi-region matched primary and metastatic tumours from the TRACERx lung cancer evolution and PEACE research autopsy programmes and will be part of the collaborative and international CANCAN Cancer Grand Challenge Team. The candidate will also have the opportunity to work with plasma mass spectrometry metabolomics and proteomics data, as well as tumour microenvironment studies, to aid the metabolic study of tumours.

Prof. Mariam Jamal-Hanjani is Principal Investigator of the TRACERx study at UCL, and Chief Investigator of the PEACE study. The Jamal-Hanjani Lab is a multi-disciplinary group of passionate and determined individuals who will provide the successful candidate with a stimulating and conducive environment to participate and grow as a scientist. The research in the lab is conducted in close collaboration with local and international scientists and clinicians, especially across the TRACERx and PEACE consortia and the CRUK Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence. These collaborative environments will provide the successful candidate with opportunities to learn from a large network of talented professionals.

The position will be available for 2 years in the first instance.

Appointment at Grade 7 is dependent upon having been awarded a PhD; if this is not the case, initial appointment will be at Research Assistant Grade 6B, with payment at Grade 7 being backdated to the date of final submission of the PhD thesis.

Applications should include a CV and a Cover Letter: In the Cover Letter please evidence the essential and desirable criteria in the Person Specification part of the Job Description. (By including a Cover Letter, you can leave blank the 'Why you have applied for this role' field in the application form, which is limited in the number of characters it will allow.)

About you

The successful applicant must have a PhD and a proven track record of publications, have previous experience with genomics data analysis, be fluent in at least one of the following programming languages: C++, Python or R, and will have strong skills in the field of genomics and desirably one or more of the following: tumour biology, cancer metabolism, proteomics, evolutionary biology, statistics and mathematics.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:

1. 41 Days holiday (including 27 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays and 6 closure days)
2. Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
3. Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
4. On-Site nursery
5. On-site gym
6. Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
7. Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service
8. Discounted medical insurance

For rewards and benefits at UCL please visit: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/reward-and-benefits.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London's Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world's talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.

We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL's workforce.

These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.

You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/