Research Technician

Applications are invited for a Research Technician post in Placental Biology, Extracellular Vesicles and Reproductive Immunology. The overall aim of the project is to investigate the interaction between the maternal immune system and the placenta via extracellular vesicles. The post includes the opportunity to perform, and gain experience in a very wide range of advanced techniques, including cellular and molecular assays.

You will join a research group working to understand the communication between the immune system and the placenta during pregnancy, headed by Dr Beth Holder: (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/b.holder and https://www.theholderlab.com/ ).

You will be a motivated, hard-working, and independent team member who is eager to learn and help to drive excellent scientific research. Experience in tissue culture, molecular biology, immunological assays, and microscopy is highly desirable, though training will be given. Additionally, experience in the study of extracellular vesicles is also highly desirable. As a fastidious lab worker, you will be an excellent record keeper and support the running of the laboratory, including assisting with routine sample processing.

We study placentas from term delivery, as well as first/second trimester placentas from terminations of pregnancy. Therefore, please note that the role requires you to be able to work with these samples.

Duties and responsibilities

You will work together with other lab members to:

• Co-ordinate with research staff, research nurses/midwives and NHS staff to arrange collection of patient samples (blood and placenta)
• This will include the collection and dissection of placental tissues following terminations of pregnancy. You will be required to be present in theatre where the procedure occurs, to communicate with theatre staff, and to dissect the placental/decidual tissue from a receptacle containing foetal tissue. Please ensure that you are comfortable with this aspect of the role before applying.

• Carry out routine duties, including processing of patient samples and preparation of solutions
• Perform standard scientific techniques including cell/tissue culture, cellular and molecular assays
• Perform assays to isolate and characterise extracellular vesicles
• Perform fluorescence microscopy
• Prepare samples for proteomics and miRNA analyses
• Perform advanced molecular techniques, including RNAi and transfections
• Analyse and present data for interpretation by others
• Contribute towards routine maintenance and operation of the group and laboratory

Essential requirements

• You must have relevant laboratory-based experience


• Experience and knowledge in cell biology


• Excellent organisational skills


• Excellent attention to detail and record keeping


• The ability to troubleshoot and solve problems


• Excellent verbal and written communication skills


• Excellent interpersonal skills


• Teamwork


• Ability and willingness to use personal initiative to accomplish tasks in an efficient and timely manner.


• Fluorescence microscopy (including confocal) experience


• Experience in extracellular vesicle biology

Further information

The post is available to start as soon as possible. This post is Fixed Term until 31st May 2024.

Applications should be submitted online.

For technical issues when applying online please email recruitment@imperial.ac.uk

Should you have any queries regarding this role please contact: Dr Beth Holder – b.holder@imperial.ac.uk.

For technical issues when applying online, please contact: recruitment@imperial.ac.uk

The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/

The College believes that the use of animals in research is vital to improve human and animal health and welfare. Animals may only be used in research programmes where their use is shown to be necessary for developing new treatments and making medical advances. Imperial is committed to ensuring that, in cases where this research is deemed essential, all animals in the College’s care are treated with full respect, and that all staff involved with this work show due consideration at every level.

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-integrity/animal-research/

Documents

• Job-Description Final.pdf