Postdoctoral Research Assistant - UOD1642

The School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee is a world-class academic institution with a reputation for the excellence of its research, its high quality teaching and student experience, and the strong impact of its activities outside academia. With 900 staff from over 40 countries worldwide the School provides a multi-national, collegiate and diverse environment with state-of-the-art laboratory, technology and teaching facilities.

We are recruiting for an exceptional individual to join us as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant within in the laboratory of Prof Rastko Sknepnek in the Division Computational Biology, to undertake fundamental research into the cell based modelling of gastrulation of the chick embryo. This is a fixed-term appointment for 8 months, available from August 1st 2024 to 31 March 2025 .

This research project is a highly interdisciplinary collaboration at the Life Sciences/Physics interface with the research teams of Prof Kees Weijer, University of Dundee, Prof Julia Yeomans, University of Oxford and Prof Guillaume Charras, University College London.

The Dundee PDRA will be primarily responsible for the modelling of critical cell behaviours, that drive large scale tissue flows and deformations during gastrulation, especially their ingression in the primitive streak. These cell and tissue behaviours are visualised and characterised at the scale of the embryo using a custom built dedicated lightsheet microscope in the Weijer lab. These in-vivo experiments, will interface directly with in-vitro biophysical experiments on tissue isolates from these embryos carried out in UCL and further detailed biophysical modelling in Oxford. This position therefore not only provides a unique opportunity to work on solving an important biological problem using state of the art techniques, but also offer the opportunity to work in a highly interdisciplinary re search project at the interface between biology and physics

Your priorities will include:

• Perform cell-based modelling of gastrulation in chick embryos after chemical and physical perturbation
• Contribute to large scale computational image processing and data analysis pipeline to quantify cell and tissue behaviours.
• Prepare and present data at laboratory and project meetings
• Transfer and exchange expertise with other experimental and theory members of the team
• Prepare data and content for manuscripts

Who we’re looking for:

• A highly motivated researcher with a keen interest and experience in Biophysics, tissue mechanics and computational data analysis.
• Experience cell based modelling and computational image data analysis will be highly advantageous.
• Experience in coding (Python, MATLAB, C/C++) will be highly advantageous
• Interest and ability to work effectively in an interdisciplinary research environment

For further information about this position please contact Prof Rastko Sknepnek at r.sknepnek@dundee.ac.uk. To find out more about Sknepnek group visit https://www.dundee.ac.uk/people/rastko-sknepnek

The diversity of our staff and students helps to make the University of Dundee a UK university of choice for undergraduate, postgraduate and distance learning. Family friendly policies, staff networks for BME, Disabled and LGBT staff, membership of Athena SWAN, the ECU Race Equality Charter and Stonewall as well a full range of disability services, create an enjoyable and inclusive place to work.

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