Job Description

About us Our mission is to maximise and advocate for the holistic health of all children, young people and the adults they will become, through world-class research, education and public engagement. The UCL GOS ICH, together with its clinical partner Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, forms the largest concentration of children's health research outside North America. The 2024-29 GOS ICH strategy focuses on its five scientific programmes. GOS ICH's activities include active engagement with children and families, to ensure that our work is relevant and appropriate to their needs. GOS ICH generates the funding for our research by setting out our proposals in high quality applications to public, charitable and industrial funding bodies and disseminates the results of our research by publication in the medical and scientific literature, to clinicians, policy makers and the wider public. The Institute offers world-class education and training across a wide range of teaching and life learning programmes which address the needs of students and professional groups who are interested in and undertaking work relevant to child health. GOS ICH holds an Athena SWAN Charter Gold Award.
Please only attach relevant documents to your application (qualifications, cover letters, supporting statements) and avoid attaching large files e.g. research papers, thesis, publications etc.
About the role This project aims to understand normal human hindbrain development. This brain structure, formed by the cerebellum and brainstem, plays important roles in regulating cognitive behaviours but also vital body functions. Its development however, remains mostly uncharacterised. In this project, the pos-tholder will characterise progenitor zones in the human developing hindbrain by developing and applying new methods to study progenitor behaviour and lineages.
We have recently shown that human developing cerebellum contains spatiotemporally expanded progenitor zones and new cell types that do not exist in other mammalian species (Haldipur et al, 2019 Science, in collaboration with Kathleen Millen, Seattle, US). This project seeks to expand on this study to continue investigating the unique cellular features that characterise the human hindbrain development.
The post-holder will develop human hindbrain tissue culture and sparse cell labelling of different progenitor types (DiI, viral vectors or plasmid focal electroporations) for long-term live imaging. This will be used to determine progenitors proliferative and migratory behaviours. The insertion of single cell barcoding in progenitor cells and single cell RNA sequencing analysis will allow for non-biased identification of cell types and reconstruction of cell lineages. Histological analysis will be required to characterise hindbrain progenitor zones. This project will generate critical new knowledge that is needed to understand normal human hindbrain development and to interpret human hindbrain malformations.
The salary offered in this role is at either grade 6B (39,148 - 41,833 per annum) or grade 7 (45,103 per annum) and is funded until 31/10/2026 in the first instance.
About you We are seeking a creative, organised, hard-working and highly motivated individual to join the group of Dr. Paula Alexandre to study human hindbrain development as part of the neuro research theme of the Human Developmental Biology Initiative (HDBI, www.hdbi.org). Candidates should have a PhD (or Master's degree, in the case of Grade 6B) or equivalent experience in neurobiology or relevant area. Previous work in cell and explant culture, live imaging and single cell methods would be advantageous.
Candidates must have, or be studying towards a PhD. Appointment at Grade 7 is dependent upon having been awarded a PhD; if this is not the case, initial appointment will be at research assistant Grade 6B (spine points 25 - 28) with payment at Grade 7 being backdated to the date of final submission of the PhD thesis.
What we offer As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:
41 Days holiday (including 27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days)
Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
On-Site nursery
On-site gym
Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service
Discounted medical insurance
Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion As London's Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world's talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.
We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL's workforce.
These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.
You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here : https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/
Available documents

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