Post-doctoral Research Associate in Preclinical Liver MRI

About the role

We are looking for a highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to join Dr Andrada Ianus at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, working in close collaboration with Dr. Po-Wah So at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. You will join a dynamic multi-disciplinary team with access to cutting-edge imaging facilities and world-renowned expertise. You will work on an ERC Starting Grant funded project to deliver novel MRI approaches to image the liver and enable the detection and characterisation of micrometastases.

The overarching aim of this project is to enable the detection and mapping of liver micrometastases development in cancer, based on a novel MRI approach which combines multi-dimensional diffusion-relaxometry acquisitions, efficient data denoising and biophysical modelling of the tissue microstructure.

In this position, you will work on developing advanced preclinical MRI techniques and you will employ them for 1) in-vivo mouse liver imaging, both for normal controls and in models of liver metastases and 2) ex-vivo MRI of human liver tissue specimens. You will be responsible for the sequence implementation, data acquisition and analysis, including biophysical models of liver tissue, as well as liaising with the Liver Biobank at King's College Hospital in the Denmark Hill for the work related to tissue samples. The experimental part of this work will be based at the James Black Centre in the Denmark Hill Campus.

The applicant should have a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Medical Physics, Medical Imaging, or a related area (or pending results). They should have good analytical and programming skills, in depth knowledge of MR theory, and experience with the acquisition and analysis of (preclinical) MRI data, as well as with mathematical modelling and image processing methods.

This is a full-time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract for 3 years.

About You

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

Essential criteria

• Hold a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Medical Physics, Medical Imaging or related discipline* 
• Excellent working knowledge of MRI theory, data acquisition and analysis
• Good working knowledge of mathematical modelling
• Practical experience within a research environment and / or publication in relevant and refereed journals
• Proficiency in MATLAB, Python, or other relevant programming languages 
• Motivation to work with animal models
• Self-motivated, ability to work independently and in a team, willingness to conduct out-of-working hours data acquisitions when needed
• Ability to communicate well, critically assess research findings, to present at conferences and represent the team in meetings

*  Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6.

Desirable criteria

• Relevant practical experience with in-vivo preclinical MRI of rodents
• Experience implementing MRI sequences on (pre)clinical scanners 
• Work experience in a multi-disciplinary environment 
• Experience with animal procedures, knowledge of animal research ethical principles and methods

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