[Neuroinfo] Postdoc position recording electrical activity from iPSC preparations

[Stephen Eglen]

This project, funded by the Medical Research Council will identify novel potential pain modulating compounds for the treatment of chronic pain conditions. The approach taken by the project is to use an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) based model of erythromelalgia (a neuropathic pain condition that causes sensory neurones to become hyperexcitable because of sodium channels mutations) to develop a platform that permits high throughput screening of small molecule compound libraries. Cells will be grown in multiwell multielectrode array (MEA) dishes, allowing us to characterise their firing behaviour under different drug regimes.

 

The Research Associate will be responsible for recording electrical activity from erythromelalgia patient iPSC-derived cultures of sensory neurones using multiwell MEAs and for analysing firing patterns in the presence of different drugs (in Dr Evelyne Sernagor’s lab in the Institute of Neuroscience). Thousands of compounds provided by Astra Zeneca will be tested. The Research Associate will also be involved in tissue culture (in Prof Lyle Armstrong and Prof Majlinda Lako’s lab in the Institute of Genetic Medicine), with the help of a dedicated technician.

 

You should have background in neuroscience, pharmacology or physics, and a PhD in neurophysiology or a closely-related discipline. You will be expected to have experience in in vitro neurophysiological recordings and tissue culture techniques. Experience in stem cell work, programming for data analysis and/or drug screening is desirable.

 

You will be expected to be working independently and as part of a team, maintaining accurate lab records, performing experiments and analysing results for conference presentations and publications, preparing reports for key meetings with industrial partners, and actively participating in postgraduate and undergraduate student supervision.

 

You will have good communication skills, a critical analytical approach to problem solving and be fluent in spoken and written English.

 

Duration of post: 3 years

 

Informal enquiries

Evelyne Sernagor (evelyne.sernagor at ncl.ac.uk)



 

Salary: £29,799 - £38,833
Closing Date: 25 March 2018

 

For additional details about this vacancy and essential information on how to apply, visit our Job Vacancies web page at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/vacancies/

Formal applications MUST be made through this link, otherwise they cannot be taken into consideration.