About us

Cancer is a major strategic area of UCLH, UCL and the Francis Crick Institute, including a strong focus on translational cancer evolution research. There is an excellent infrastructure allowing clinical trials to be linked with basic science. Cancer is a major component of the NIHR/Wellcome UCLH Clinical Research Facility supported by the Wellcome Trust, the NIHR and Cancer Research UK. The recent consolidation and centralisation of cancer research within the UCLH/UCL axis provides a unique opportunity to link clinical research with patient care in an outstanding environment.

UCL is one of the UK’s premier research and teaching Universities (www.ucl.ac.uk) and has one of the largest Biomedical Faculties in Europe. UCL is both a Cancer Research UK Centre and an Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre providing key infrastructure for cancer research. The UCL Cancer Institute is a £40 million investment in central London based at University College London (UCL), one of the world’s top universities and a founding member of the Crick Institute. UCL Cancer Institute draws together over 300 scientists working together to develop world-class basic and translational cancer research. Through our associations with UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the Institute has greater clinical links than any comparable centre in the UK and a significant impact on the delivery of clinical service to cancer patients. This concentration of excellence, access to patients and significant recent investment of cancer treatment and research infrastructure makes UCL a global leader.

University College Hospital (UCH) is a new state-of-the-art hospital in central London (http://www.uclh.nhs.uk/), with access to all types of imaging, including CT-PET and functional imaging, and molecular pathological services. The UCLH/UCL partnership has been awarded Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre status by the National Institute for Health Research and Cancer is a major theme.

About the role

This part-time post (20 hours) is funded for a maximum period of 36 months in the first instance.

This position will offer a high quality basic science and translational research experience to a suitably motivated individual who seeks to combine a clinical career in oncology with scientific research.

This three-year post should enable a clinical research fellow to obtain a widely varied computational experience and prepare for an application for independent funding. It is anticipated that the trainee will present their findings at regional and international meetings, and submit original research for peer-reviewed publication. It is not expected that the post holder will continue with clinical commitment during the funding period, although out of hours clinical work is allowable.

The primary supervisors will be Prof Charles Swanton (UCL Cancer Institute/Francis Crick Institute) and Dr Nicholas McGranahan (UCL Cancer Institute) and there will be an opportunity for collaborative dry laboratory work to be performed within their groups (with the fellow primarily based at the Francis Crick Institute). The research project broadly aims to better characterise lung cancer evolution and improve our understanding of intra-tumour heterogeneity, chromosomal instability and the tumour immune microenvironment in this cancer type.

The project will make use of the unique TRACERx (TRAcking Cancer Evolution through therapy (Rx)) multi-omic, multi-regional dataset in non-small cell lung cancer to characterise primary cancer phylogeny, and track clonal dynamics over time and through treatment using circulating tumour DNA from plasma samples. All these data relating to primary lung tumours will be correlated to clinical outcome measures. These analyses using the TRACERx dataset may allow treatment stratification through identification of predictive biomarkers, and give insight for future therapeutic development. This project will be computational, and will include development of bioinformatic pipelines for analysis of high throughput genomic and expression data.

About you

The postholder will have a medical degree and PhD (or expecting award of PhD within the next 12 months). The postholder should also have experience in bioinformatic analysis and programming. Experience in genomics and genetics would be advantageous.

What we offer

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Our department holds an Athena SWAN Silver award, in recognition of our commitment and demonstrable impact in advancing gender equality. 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.