ABOUT US

Early trials of CAR-T in solid tumours while showing some promise for the therapy often fail to reach the clinical success of those seen in haeamtological malignancies. As such further effort needs to be pot into developing relevant models to assess efficacy and potential downfalls of CAR T cells and find strategies to mitigate these issues.
Additionally, we are developing further immunotherapies against solid tumours including other targets, such as dual-targeting CAR-T and bi-specific T cell engagers, as well as combining with radiotherapy.
A major challenge is preclinically testing these treatments before clinical use to select the safest, most effective therapies. Current in vitro and in vivo solid tumour models for testing CAR T cells specifically are severely limited, some lacking a functional human immune system to properly evaluate toxicity and efficacy and some not recapitulating the disease and TME effectively.

ABOUT THE ROLE

This role will be based in the Roddie laboratory at UCL Cancer Institute. The postholder will further develop and test models of solid and test the efficacy of immunotherapy (CAR T cells) potential alone or in combination with other therapies. The post will involve molecular cloning, lentiviral production, HSC isolation and manipulation, complex analysis using flow cytometry, RNA-seq and other tools. There will a main component of murine work involved in establishing, validating and testing the model. There is a substantial focus on development and testing of new immunotherapies, with a focus on CAR-T in HCC, RCC and Breast Cancer.
Further, there will be the opportunity to develop other projects in T cell/ antibody engineering, depending on the interests of the candidate. This would be an excellent opportunity for a candidate interested in translational research to gain experience in cancer immunotherapy and complex modelling.

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENT FOR THE ROLE: A VALID UK PERSONAL LICENSE (PIL) REQUIRED, A COPY OF WHICH SHOULD BE BROUGHT TO INTERVIEW.

The post is for 1 year in the first instance. The starting salary is contingent on the candidate’s previous experience.
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.)

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

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