"Research Associate in the Department of Psychological Medicine"

About us

This role is based in the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CfHBA), in the Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London.

The IoPPN aims to change and shape how we understand, prevent and treat mental health and other conditions that affect the brain. We work to transform care for people who are affected by mental health and neurological conditions, through world-class research, education and training, to serve or communities locally and globally.

About the role

The post-holder will join a Rosetrees Trust funded research project which aims to determine the molecular mechanisms of synapse loss that occur across several of the major neurodegenerative, primarily with the aim of identifying means to halt them. The project spans from mouse to man and bench to bedside and will utilise many different techniques and advanced pieces of equipment available at the world-renowned Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute.

Specifically, this post will explore the relationship between the driver of Alzheimer’s disease, amyloid-beta (Ab), and the driver of Parkinson’s disease, alpha-synuclein (⍺Syn), with the aim of uncovering the common mechanism we suspect lies at the heart both diseases. The role will primarily conduct ‘wet lab’ based basic medical research but will also works closely with other colleagues involved in animal work, fluid-based biomarker discovery and the conducting of clinical trials.

Essential to this role is the ability to generate, maintain and treat primary rodent cortical neurons, good experience of conducting super resolution microscopy and performing quantitative analysis of synapse/dendritic spine number and morphology and previous experience of working with human iPSC derived cells and or organoids.

This is a full-time post 35 hours per week, and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 31st October 2029.

Research staff at King’s are entitled to at least 10 days per year (pro-rata) for professional development. This entitlement, from the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, applies to Postdocs, Research Assistants, Research and Teaching Technicians, Teaching Fellows and AEP equivalent up to and including grade 7. Visit the Centre for Research Staff Development for more information.

About you

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

Essential criteria

• PhD in relevant subject area (neuroscience or related)
• Experience and ability of generating and culturing primary rodent neurons and glia.
• Experience and knowledge of working with iPSC derived cells.
• Broad knowledge and wide experience of immunoblotting, immunocytochemistry, immunohistochemistry and ELISA.
• A drive to lead and progress science with a sense of urgency, exemplified through timely realisation of results and publications.
• Good experience of microscopy techniques, especially confocal and super resolution microscopy and use of Image-J/FUJI or other image analysis software.
• Broad experience of protein, RNA and DNA extraction and classical and quantitative PCR. Experience of synaptosomal preps and subcellular fractionation are both an advantage.
• Proficiency in Word, Excel and Power Point (or Apple equivalents), and Prism/SPSS statistical packages.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of immunoprecipitation/co-IP
• Experience of recombinant protein production
• Experience of click chemistry/protein semi-synthesis/peptide synthesis
• Experience of culturing brain organoids
• Use of multielectrode array (MEA) and/or Ca2+ imaging systems

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document.