Scientist in Advanced Imaging Women's Health

SALARY: From £49,300 per annum (depending on skills and experience)

LOCATION: Didcot, Oxfordshire

JOB TYPE: 3 Years Fixed-Term, Full-Time Contract

The Rosalind Franklin Institute (the Franklin) is a technology institute established by the UK Government as a unique centre committed to advancing tools that are needed to transform healthcare in the future.

The Institute brings together researchers in life and physical sciences, and engineering, to develop a spectrum of tools which we will use to image, interpret and intervene in biological systems. These insights will speed up the discovery of new medicines, help find new diagnostics and contribute to a deeper understanding of human health and disease. Our Science Strategy seeks to focus the Franklin’s research and unite our researchers around our Technology Innovation Challenges and Life Science Challenges.

Within Quantitative Biology Across Scales (QBAS) Challenge, you will develop and integrate correlative, multiscale imaging workflows that connect tissue organisation and cellular ultra structure with molecular structure. These workflows span biological and cryogenic sample preparation, multimodal data acquisition, sample tracking and registration across scales, and data processing, with feedback between biological interpretation, analysis and acquisition to improve robustness, relevance and throughput.

QBAS combines advanced imaging, quantitative analysis and AI to link information from cells, tissues and organs, with a major focus on women’s health. Our primary biological focus is on complex women’s health issues that require multidisciplinary approaches and collaboration across multiple teams. One of our key areas is supporting clinicians in better understanding and characterising reproductive and maternal health with specific interest in complication during late pregnancy, endometriosis and impact of STD on fertility.

We are looking for an outstanding, curious and collaborative scientist who can help bridge technology development and important biological questions. We welcome candidates from either of two complementary backgrounds:
You may be a technology-development scientist with expertise in cryogenic imaging and relevant data processing with a strong motivation to apply and adapt these approaches to women’s health. Alternatively, you may be a leading cellular biologist with expertise in reproductive and maternal health with an excellent understanding of the relevant clinical context and a strong drive to develop and exploit new imaging technologies.

For candidates from a biological background, experience with human tissue, clinically characterised samples or cohorts, pathology, or close interaction with clinical teams would be particularly valuable. You should be able to identify the biological and clinical questions that matter and help translate them into experimentally tractable projects. For candidates from a technology background, deep expertise in advanced imaging or instrumentation and the ability to develop, optimise and integrate new workflows will be particularly important.

In both cases, the role will require a strong interest in working across disciplines and developing expertise beyond your original field. You will work closely with biologists, clinicians, microscopists, engineers and computational scientists to ensure that technology development is driven by meaningful biological questions, while biological studies take full advantage of the advanced technologies available at the Franklin.

As a Scientist at the Franklin, you will demonstrate prior experience in leading an area of research or technology development, based on established expertise. You will grow a…