Fixed-term until 31st January 2017.

A postdoctoral opportunity has become available for a molecular cell biologist focusing on the use of combinations of anti-cancer drugs to identify novel therapeutic approaches and circumvent drug resistance. This position is within the teams of McDermott and Garnett as part of the Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

The team perform large-scale combinatorial and single agent drug sensitivity screens in cancer cell lines and linking drug response with detailed genetic, transcriptomic, epigenetic and proteomic datasets to identify biomarkers of drug response that can be used to develop new therapeutic strategies (Garnett, et al. Nature, 2012). This role will be involved in the design and analysis of results from large-scale drug sensitivity screens, and leading to mechanistic studies to validate candidate combinatorial therapeutic strategies. .

You will be working within a dynamic environment as part of a multi-disciplinary team formed of postdocs, students, bioinformaticians, statisticians and computer biologists. The team has unique experience performing high-throughput drug sensitivity screens and integrating these results with large-scale genomic datasets, together with mechanistic studies, to identify new therapeutic strategies and transition these finding into clinical trials. Candidates will have access to state-of-art facilities and resources including high content microscopy, large-scale functional screening infrastructure (chemical, RNAi, CRISPR, transposon), DNA sequencing, patient-derived cell cultures, and genetically engineered mouse models.

The post will also require the applicant to participate in the planning and development of a scientific research project as part of a collaborative effort with Massachusetts General Hospital (USA).

Essential Skills

• PhD in either molecular biology or cell biology 
• Cell culture experience 
• Self-motivation and diligence 
• Organisational skills and accuracy 
• Good publication record or proven track record through work in industry
• Good communication skills

Ideal Skill

• Molecular biology techniques 
• Cancer cell culture experience 
• Some programming skills

Other information: In collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital we are seeking to identify a new generation of combinatorial anti-cancer therapies with associated molecular biomarkers. Our approach involves profiling the sensitivity of >1000 genomically annotated human cancer across several thousand two-drug combinations to identify molecular biomarkers of drug response. Putative biomarkers will be validated with detailed mechanistic studies using in vitro cell culture, clinically-derived cells, and in vivo mouse models. This approach is anticipated to yield a number of putative therapeutic strategies to be evaluated in existing clinical trial networks.

Postdoctoral Fellows are typically in their first or second postdoctoral position as part of a period of early career research training.

The post is a three year fixed-term contract.