Research Assistant/Associate: Leukaemia Research (Newcastle, GB)

Salary:

Research Assistant: £32,546 to £34,132 per annum

Research Associate: £35,116 to £38,249 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 01 May 2025

The Role

An exciting opportunity for a Research Assistant/Associate to join a leukaemia research team within the Biosciences Institute. You will work within the Wolfson Childhood Cancer Research Centre to support a new and exciting project funded by Cancer Research UK.

You will work independently to characterise the role that strong regulatory regions, called super-enhancers, play in driving gene expression in healthy B cells and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. You will apply sophisticated bioinformatic algorithms to analyse an array of chromatin profiling data derived from CUT&Tag, CUT&RUN, promoter capture HiC, ATAC-seq, UMI-4C and RNA-seq experiments. You will develop and carry out the specified project in collaboration with other members of the group leading to the discovery of new knowledge. You will have the opportunity to interact with a broad range of researchers within the Newcastle Centre for Cancer, Newcastle University Biosciences Institute (NUBI) and more widely across the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

NUBI houses over 100 research groups striving to drive forward our mechanistic understanding of human disease. It brings together biochemists, computational biologists, bioengineers and cellular and molecular specialists, providing a truly multidiscplinary environment in which to work.

Find out more about the Faculty of Medical Sciences here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/

Find out more about our Research Institutes here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/research/institutes/

As part of our commitment to career development for research colleagues, the University has developed 3 levels of research role profiles. These profiles set out firstly the generic competences and responsibilities expected of role holders at each level and secondly the general qualifications and experiences needed for entry at a particular level.

Please note that if you are successful to this role, you will require medical clearance before you can commence in the role

Key Accountabilities

Although working under the general guidance of an academic or Principal Investigator, the postholder will contribute ideas, including enhancements to the technical or methodological aspects of their studies, thus providing substantial 'added value' Develop and carry out the specified project using appropriate methods and pipelines as outlined in the personal requirements Determine appropriate methodologies for research, with advice and support where required Contribute to grant applications submitted by others and in time develop own research objectives and proposals for funding Begin to write, with appropriate support, proposals for individual research funding or, where funders do not permit this, contribute to the writing of collective bids Assess research findings for the need/scope for further investigations Contribute to the writing up of their research for publication and dissemination, either through seminar and conference presentations or through publications Present research findings, either at conferences or through publications in reputable outlets appropriate to the discipline May be involved in the supervision, with guidance, of final year undergraduate research projects and in providing support to postgraduate research students or Research Assistants Will need to work with the support staff and, on occasions, with undergraduate and postgraduate students, and interact intellectually with other academic members of the Institute May contribute to events celebrating the public engagement of science/social sciences/humanities Develop an awareness of University structures, policies and procedures and relevant issues in the higher education, research, social and political environment

The Person

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Ability to work well as part of a team and rapidly acquire new skills Detailed subject knowledge (leukaemia, chromosomal rearrangements, epigenomic regulation) of the team’s research area Likelihood of advanced skills directly related to the research project High level of analytical and problem-solving capability Ability to communicate complex information with clarity and to encourage the commitment of others Experience of research with clear transferable skills and some experience or awareness of the research environment Presentations at conferences and/or high-quality publications Experience in developing and maintaining bioinformatic analysis pipelines Proficient in the processing and analysing next generation sequencing (NGS) data using Linux/UNIX Proficient in R and/or other programming languages for downstream computational and statistical analysis Experience with analysing ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq and RNA-seq data including differential enrichment and gene analysis, pathway enrichment and multi-omics approaches

Desirable

Experience with processing and analysis of CUT&Tag and CUT&RUN data

Attributes and Behaviour

Works collaboratively with other team and Institute members, respecting the expertise and knowledge of others Sets own priorities in conjunction with team and area objectives Has a positive attitude and strives to improve ways of working Uses face to face communication regularly; team meetings, one to ones, informal discussions/chats, briefing sessions etc Has good time management skills to enable timely completion of tasks

Desirable

Takes responsibility for maintaining and training others Grasps opportunities to expand own responsibilities and expertise, investing personal effort in enhancing skills and continuous learning

Qualifications

A PhD (or close to finishing a PhD) ideally in medical/cancer bioinformatics. Those nearing completion of a PhD will be offered the role as Research Assistant and those with a PhD will be offered the role as Research Associate. MSc in Bioinformatics with additional relevant experience (offered the role as Research Assistant)

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society. We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality. We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC. We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe.

Requisition ID: 27938