The Open Targets team at our 10 year anniversary celebration in October 2024
Join our team!
Open Targets is based on the stunning Wellcome Genome Campus, home to some of the world's foremost institutes and organisations in genomics and computational biology. We work in dynamic teams at the interface of academic and pharma industry science on a crucial problem, how to be more successful in making drugs. Working with us, you will be exposed to new technologies and a dynamic set of scientists dedicated to translational research.
Our posts are usually in either one of our academic partners, The Wellcome Sanger Institute or EMBL-EBI and have terms and conditions associated with the employer.
Important note: applications may be reviewed on an ongoing basis and the advertised post(s) may be filled before the stated deadline.
Staff Scientist | High-throughput single-cell CRISPR screening
Application closing date: 16 February 2025
The position will be based between the wet lab group of Dr Andrew Bassett and Dr Sarah Cooper and work closely with Dr Mo Lotfollahi to contribute to a collaborative project with the Lotfollahi Lab.
As a Staff Scientist, you will perform targeted combinatorial CRISPR-screens with a set of identified top candidate genes associated with neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and build custom CRISPR libraries to knock out these genes and their combinations. You will use established differentiation protocols to generate neurons, astrocytes, and microglia and their cocultures and perform single-cell ‘omics and cellular phenotypic assays such as endo-lysosomal function, ER stress or cell painting on the resulting cells.
Our aim is to identify and prioritise genes important for disease-relevant processes across multiple cell types, to reveal the underlying molecular mechanisms and new routes for therapeutic intervention. These datasets will be fed to generative AI methods to predict unmeasured perturbations, and an important aspect of this project will be the validation of these predicted perturbations in the lab. As part of this position, we will support you to develop your computational skills and learn concepts about machine learning.
Data Manager (Part Time)
Application closing date: 16 February 2025
12 month maternity cover position available to support data sharing within the consortium. This is a flexible opportunity, working 2 days per week within the Operations Team in Open Targets which is made up of EMBL-EBI & Sanger team members.
Working with Open Target project teams (Sanger, EMBL and third parties) to track data production and facilitate pre-publication data releases to Open Targets consortium partners. This includes managing versioning, formatting, and meta-data of releases as appropriate as well as tracking & recording final public release to the scientific community.
You will also oversee the organisation of project data within the Sanger data farm (the OTAR file space) working with Sanger IT, including the usage of a common directory for Open Targets project data and providing advice on long-term data storage or submission to project teams. You will maintain the infrastructure & ways of working for data management. You will be the point of contact for any data related queries from partners and/or public users of the data.
Postdoctoral Fellow | Neurodegenerative Disease Immune Response Modelling
Application closing date: 2 March 2025
Join an interdisciplinary team to perform an exciting and ambitious project using cutting-edge techniques with the aim to understand commonalities and differences in immune responses across neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).
The position will be based at Wellcome Sanger Institute under the leadership of Dr Andrew Bassett and Dr Sarah Cooper and will also benefit from a secondment position working under the leadership of Dr Sally Cowley at the University of Oxford where they will spend the first half of their contract.
The successful applicant will establish complex disease-relevant cellular models derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). These will be modulated using external stressors and genetic backgrounds, and the resulting phenotypes will be analysed using a combination of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) and high-content imaging-based spatial assays that will allow comparison back to human patient samples to understand the disease-relevant phenotypes that can be modelled.