Post-doctoral Research Associate

About Us The KCL School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences and it’s Department of Infectious Diseases are internationally recognised for the broad spectrum of approaches they use to understand infectious diseases and improve health and well-being. The School and Department host world leaders in immunology, pathogen molecular biology, and host-pathogen interactions, encompassing a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and experience. The Department is based at the Guy's campus, enabling strong connections with clinical units at the adjacent Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Trust. At Guy's campus, KCL has a fully managed zebrafish, microscopy, and molecular biology facilities, which will be used in the project. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/vincenzo-torraca

About the role The project Shigella is an important human pathogen and antimicrobial resistance priority threat. We have recently determined that Shigella sonnei can establish persistent infections that are not completely cleared by the host immune system or antibiotic treatments.

We seek a Postdoctoral Research Associate to develop an innovative research project that will characterise what host and pathogen factors control Shigella persistent infections and the links of this phenotype to antibiotic tolerance. The candidate will combine molecular and cellular biology techniques, transcriptomics, microbial genomics, and imaging (see for example Torraca et al., 2019; Torraca et al., 2023) in their project.

The research will focus on studying Shigella sonnei infection in vivo using the zebrafish model. The candidate will also contribute to the training of undergraduate and postgraduate students. The successful candidate will also be supported to apply for additional postdoctoral fellowships to possibly extend their post.

The candidate We are seeking for a candidate that has obtained (or will obtain soon) a PhD in a relevant subject (i.e., microbiology, and/or immunology, molecular biology, cell biology). Experience with bacterial pathogens, ‘omics’ sciences (i.e., transcriptomics, microbial genomics) is essential for this post. The ideal candidate should also have strong molecular biology and imaging background. Experience with the zebrafish model is desirable but not essential.

How to apply With your application, please also submit your CV (up to 3 pages), highlighting previous work experience, education, publication, presentation records and any other records that you consider relevant for the application. Please also submit a structured cover letter where you highlight your motivation to apply for this post. This letter should also have clearly highlighted subheadings for each essential and desirable criteria, where you should specify/provide details on how each of the criterion is met (up to 3 pages).

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 05 February 2028. Due to the requirements of this role, it is not suitable for remote working.

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 qualified in relevant subject area (i.e., molecular biology, cell biology, microbiology, and/or immunology)* Documented experience with studying bacterial pathogens (preferably Enterobacteriaceae) Documented expertise in molecular biology (especially DNA/RNA extractions and manipulations, CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing) and with omics-based approaches (e.g. RNA-seq, microbial genomics) Documented expertise in imaging (preferably confocal microscopy including imaging of host-pathogen interactions) Documented ability to design, implement and analyse experiments Excellent oral and written communication skills (i.e., documented by presentations at academic meetings and track record of publications in peer-reviewed journals and/or preprints) Academic integrity and rigor (i.e., evidenced by excellent research practice and by maintaining well documented, traceable, accessible and clear written and digital records of experiments, meetings, reports, and presentations) Excellent teamworking skills (i.e., documented by broader citizenship roles within the previous Departments/Teams and contributing to training others)

• 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 Experience with the zebrafish model (preferably holding a PiL licence) Experience of research involving macrophage functions Experience with genetic engineering tools (for example CRISPR-Cas9 mutagenesis, mutagenesis systems applied in bacteria, TraDIS)