Research Fellow in Developmental Biology and Gene Regulation

This position available in the Nelson group is to investigate conserved gene regulatory programmes governing nervous system and pancreas development, funded by a BBSRC standard research grant.

The objective is to understand the basis for deep and stringent conservation of enhancers at critical transcription factor genes acting in both pancreas and nervous system development throughout jawed vertebrate evolution, thus illuminating key mechanisms governing conservation of the vertebrate body plan and how enhancer mutations may lead to developmental disorders.

The post-holder will work closely with other members of the Nelson group and collaborate with Dr Robert Huckstepp’s group in School of Life Sciences to perform imaging analysis of human hindbrain organoids, and the Bioinformatics & Digital Health Research Technology Platform to perform single cell multiomics data analysis.

The project will take place in the recently opened £54.3m Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building, combining cutting-edge facilities with research groups from School of Life Sciences and Warwick Medical School working on related projects and systems including in the fields of developmental biology, neuroscience, human organoid and zebrafish research.

If you are near submission of your PhD, or have not yet had it conferred, any offers of employment will be made at Research Assistant level, at the highest spinal point of pay grade 5 (£34,610 per annum). Upon receipt of evidence confirming the successful award of your PhD, you will be promoted to Research Fellow, at the lowest spinal point of grade 6 (£35,608 per annum).

For details on the experience and skills required, please refer to the job description (link here).

The successful candidate will hold a PhD in vertebrate developmental biology, gene regulation, or a closely related field, and substantial practical experience of experimental molecular biology. The candidate should be able to establish and optimise new techniques in the laboratory, and to manage several experimental lines in parallel. It is recognised that the successful candidate is unlikely to have experience of all techniques required by the project.

Full training will be provided where required.

The successful candidate will lead an ambitious experimental genetics project exploiting human pluripotent stem cell derived organoids and zebrafish to dissect the function and regulatory logic of highly conserved enhancers functioning across the developing nervous system and pancreas. The work will combine CRISPR-mediated genome editing, single cell multiomics, and phenotypic analysis of human organoids, and fine-detail functional analysis of enhancer composition using zebrafish in vivo reporter assays.

We expect you to arrive with strengths in some of the following areas: mammalian pluripotent stem cell maintenance and directed differentiation, CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing, functional genomics and transcriptomics, single cell multiomics, and zebrafish imaging-based techniques. Full training will be provided across the remaining areas.

The successful applicant will lead the day-to-day experimental and analytical work.

£35,608 to £46,049 per annum