King's College London

About King's:

Dementia is the greatest health challenge of our century.

To date there is no way to prevent it or even slow its progression, and there is an urgent need to fill the knowledge gap in our basic understanding of the diseases that cause it.   

The UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) is the biggest UK initiative driving forward research to fill this gap.

We are a globally leading multidisciplinary research institute of 850 staff investigating the spectrum of neurodegenerative disorders causing dementia, with laboratory-based research groups located at University College London, the University of Cambridge, Cardiff University, Edinburgh University, Imperial College London, and King’s College London.

Centre context

King’s

Researchers at the UK DRI at King’s use innovative approaches to explore the biological mechanisms involved in neurodegenerative diseases. Their goal is to defeat dementia by uncovering vital new knowledge that will lead to the design of smarter diagnostics and effective treatments. The team aim to understand the fundamental biological processes involved in dementia at a molecular level – and to use that knowledge to design new ways to diagnose and treat disease more precisely.

About the role:

A new position is available for an experienced post-doctoral Research Associate in Computational Genomics in the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) research group led by Dr Sarah Marzi.

You will lead one or more projects characterising the epigenome and transcriptome of brain cell types in the context of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease and ALS.  You will be based at King’s College London under the supervision of Dr Sarah Marzi (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/sarah-marzi). You will contribute to the design and analysis of large-scale ‘omics datasets with a primary focus on analysis of the epigenome and chromatin architecture to address major research questions relevant to AD.

This opportunity would suit a bright, talented, highly motivated, and ambitious individual to lead one or more computational projects exploring the transcriptome and epigenome of brain cell types relevant to disease. The post holder will use next-generation sequencing data from patient-derived brain tissue and stem cell model systems to identify signalling pathways and transcription factors dysregulated in brain diseases with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease. You will use genomic datasets that may include (long reads) RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, CUT&Tag, ATAC-seq and single cell/nuclei datasets. These studies will help to guide the functional interpretation of disease risk variants and environmental risk factors for aging-related brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

You will be highly motivated with demonstrable experience in computational genomics and statistical modelling. The Marzi group is multidisciplinary and you will work closely with experimentalists, where you will be responsible for data analysis and visualization as well as implementing new computational methods for processing and analysis of large-scale omics data. To promote reproducibility of research, the postholder will be expected to maintain their code on depositories such as GitHub, develop containers and write workflows.

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 30/11/26.

About you:

Essential criteria

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

1. PhD awarded in Genomics, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Mathematics or a related discipline.

2. Practical experience within a research environment and publication in relevant and refereed journals and ability to conduct a detailed review of recent literature.

3. Knowledge of next-generation genomic approaches, specifically those pertaining to chromatin biology.

4. Ability to work with version control systems, i.e., Git and GitHub.

5. Practical experience with a high-performance computing and Unix/Linux environments.

6. Strong programming skills in R, python or other coding languages.

7. Practical experience in a broad range of bioinformatics approaches, including the analyses of some or all of the following genomic assays:

-RNA-seq

-Longreads genomic sequencing

-Single-cell RNA-seq

-ChIP-seq/CUT&Tag

-ATAC-seq

8. Willingness to work as part of a team and to be open-minded and cooperative

Desirable criteria

1. Background knowledge of neuroscience, biological sciences, or a closely related discipline

2. Experience with development of workflows, using languages such as NextFlow

3. An interest in the mission and research of the UK Dementia Research Institute

Further information:

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 review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

This role does meet the requirements of the Home Office and therefore we are able to offer sponsorship for candidates who require the right to work in the UK.