Research Fellow

About us

Our mission is to maximise and advocate for the holistic health of all children, young people and the adults they will become, through world-class research, education and public engagement. The UCL GOS ICH, together with its clinical partner Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, forms the largest concentration of children’s health research outside North America. The 2024-29 GOS ICH strategy focuses on its five scientific programmes. GOS ICH’s activities include active engagement with children and families, to ensure that our work is relevant and appropriate to their needs. GOS ICH generates the funding for our research by setting out our proposals in high quality applications to public, charitable and industrial funding bodies and disseminates the results of our research by publication in the medical and scientific literature, to clinicians, policy makers and the wider public. The Institute offers world-class education and training across a wide range of teachin g and life learning programmes which address the needs of students and professional groups who are interested in and undertaking work relevant to child health. GOS ICH holds an Athena SWAN Charter Gold Award.

About the role

A part-time (50% FTE) research fellow position is available to join Professor David Long’s kidney development and disease group. The researcher will work on an MRC grant studying the underlying pathophysiology and molecular signalling of a rare disease called Bladder Exstrophy (BE), as well as studying the potential application of novel anti-fibrotic therapies to BE disease models and BE tissue.

To do this, the post-holder will (i) facilitate the development of a novel ‘precision-cut bladder slice’ (PCBS) culture model of BE, (ii) examine if two anti-fibrotic agents can prevent the progression of fibrosis in BE and (iii) use non-biased single cell RNA-sequencing to assess the transcriptome of BE on a cell-by-cell basis to identify new molecular targets that could prevent fibrosis in this condition.

The salary offered in this post is £43,124 - £45,372 pa pro rata and is funded for 12 months in the first instance.

About you

The post-holder will hold a PhD or equivalent in a relevant biomedical subject and be from a clinical or clinical-academic medical background with an interest in paediatric urology.

Experience of undertaking research in a biomedical setting, carrying out literature searches, critical appraisal of research papers, molecular/cellular research skills such as tissue culture, histology, physiological assessment, imaging modalities and analysis,) is essential.

Holding a UK Home Office personal licence and experience of performing surgical animal studies is essential.

Experience in either drug-dosing studies, lower urinary tract physiology or developmental biology would be desirable.

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