Assistant Technical Specialist - Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy Grade 6

Job Description Position Details

Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy, School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology, College of Medicine and Health

Location:

University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £33,002 to £35,608 with potential progression once in post to £39,906

Grade: 6

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to November 2027

Closing date: 23rd September 2026

This role is also open as an internal secondment opportunity which would need to be agreed by your current line manager.

This post is within the College of Medicine and Health, School of Infection Inflammation & Immunology. The post holder will work with Professor Ye Oo (Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy) on the project starting from 1/10/2026.

The post will support the work within Oo group, investigating induced Treg biology and its cross talk with other immune, parenchyma and epithelial cells in autoimmune liver diseases.

Background: regulatory T cell (Treg) could be induced from effector CD4 cells. This could lead to a rapid generation of Treg. These cells can change their lineage in inflammatory microenvironment. Thus stabilisation of FoxP3, Treg transcription factor is crucial. This project will generate induced Treg from CD4 effector cells, stabilise cells epigenome and test the function and phenotype of cells in inflammatory liver microenvironment setting with established liver models.

This post requires proven specialist knowledge of techniques including flow cytometry, cell culture, human tissue handling following GCP and HTA regulations, molecular, genetic analysis and interpretation of the results. The post holder will work with clinical and post-doctoral fellows in Oo group in Birmingham liver lab.

The role holder will be collaborating with other stakeholders such as members of the group, and wider University, clinical staff at local trusts and external investigators. Regular 2 weekly meetings are essential component of the project.

There will be also be a requirement to supervise and mentor junior support staff and students and to ensure compliance with local SOPs, College and local H&S policies in order to establish and maintain a safe and productive local working environment.

The role holder will provide specialist technical expertise, practical and specialist operation and development of the equipment and facility with the ability to test and implement new approaches, services or systems. The role holder is likely to have a technical qualification (or equivalent) and substantial experience and will typically be perceived to be an expert.

The role holder may supervise a number of technical staff but even where you do not directly supervise staff you will still be expected to act as a role model and coach others as appropriate.

The role holder should have knowledge of the research questions, techniques and experimental protocols being used in the facility. You will be able to use your in-depth knowledge to advise on procedures, diagnose and resolve problems, and pragmatically and proactively suggest solutions to issues which arise. You may need to operate out of normal working hours to accommodate experimental procedures.

In order to flexibly use resource you may be offered the opportunity to work in different areas of the department or wider university.

The role holder will plan and perform a variety of specialist techniques including but not exclusively:

• Isolation and enrichment of cell subsets from whole blood, and liver and the subsequent phenotypic and functional characterisation of the cells
• Culture and phenotype of cells
• T cell receptor and T cell receptor analysis with Citeseq
• Multi-colour flow cytometry and cell…