Computational Genomics Research Associate

Researchers at the UK DRI at King’s use innovative approaches to explore the biological mechanisms involved in neurodegenerative diseases. Their goal is to defeat dementia by uncovering vital new knowledge that will lead to the design of smarter diagnostics and effective treatments. The team aim to understand the fundamental biological processes involved in dementia at a molecular level – and to use that knowledge to design new ways to diagnose and treat disease more precisely.

A new position is available for an experienced post-doctoral Research Associate in Computational Genomics in the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) research group led by Dr Sarah Marzi.

 

You will lead one or more projects characterising the epigenome and transcriptome of brain cell types in the context of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease and ALS.  You will be based at King’s College London under the supervision of Dr Sarah Marzi (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/sarah-marzi). You will contribute to the design and analysis of large-scale ‘omics datasets with a primary focus on analysis of the epigenome and chromatin architecture to address major research questions relevant to AD.

 

This opportunity would suit a bright, talented, highly motivated, and ambitious individual to lead one or more computational projects exploring the transcriptome and epigenome of brain cell types relevant to disease. The post holder will use next-generation sequencing data from patient-derived brain tissue and stem cell model systems to identify signalling pathways and transcription factors dysregulated in brain diseases with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease. You will use genomic datasets that may include (long reads) RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, CUT&Tag, ATAC-seq and single cell/nuclei datasets. These studies will help to guide the functional interpretation of disease risk variants and environmental risk factors for aging-related brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

 

You will be highly motivated with demonstrable experience in computational genomics and statistical modelling. The Marzi group is multidisciplinary and you will work closely with experimentalists, where you will be responsible for data analysis and visualization as well as implementing new computational methods for processing and analysis of large-scale omics data. To promote reproducibility of research, the postholder will be expected to maintain their code on depositories such as GitHub, develop containers and write workflows.

 
This is a full-time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 30/11/26.