King's College London

THIS VACANCY IS OPEN TO INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY

About Us

The role is in the Peter Gorer Dept of Immunobiology, established in 1998, which is itself within the School of Immunology an Microbial Sciences, based on the Guy’s Hospital campus.  The post holder will be under the line management of Professor Lombardi whose team is a pioneer in understanding the biology of regulatory T cells and a leader in their clinical application in preventing transplant rejection.

About the role

The postdoc appointed on this grant will work full time as part of a team and they will be involved in a Phase 1 clinical trial with cell therapy in children receiving heart transplant. The patients will be injected with regulatory T cells (Tregs) derived from the autologous thymus (discarded during the operation) and expanded in the GMP facility at Guy’s. We are ready to start the trial. The postdoc will oversee the immunomonitoring of the patients in the trial. The immunomonitoring will be performed on the blood samples and on the heart tissues, involving different techniques. During the next 2 years of this grant (and the length of employment of the postdoc will depends on the salary scale from a minimum of 18 months to 2 years) the postdoc will have the opportunity to be part of a team of basic scientists and clinicians and as well address some basic questions about the Tregs in the thymus. The postdoc will supervise a clinical PhD student.

This is a full time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 28th February 2027.

About You

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

Essential criteria

1. PhD qualification in immunology *
2. Experience in Blood Separation 
3. Experience in Cell Culture 
4. Experience in Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting techniques 
5. Expertise with Tregs and more in general on the mechanisms of tolerance 
6. Expertise in Molecular Biology 
7. Experience supervising students (BSc, MSc, and PhD) 
8. Experience in writing manuscripts for publication

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

1. Experience in the purification and expansion of Tregs 
2. Experience working as part of a clinical trial team 
3. Experience with histology techniques 
4. Experience in writing grant application

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's. We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held on in June.

We are able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.