Current Vacancies
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Key details
- Location UK DRI at King's
- £45,031 - £52,514 per annum
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.
Join the forefront of dementia research at the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at King’s College London, where our interdisciplinary research community is dedicated to understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). As part of the Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, the UK DRI at King’s undertakes innovative cellular, molecular and translational research to advance our understanding of neurodegeneration and develop new therapeutic approaches.
About the role:
We are seeking an ambitious and organised Research Project Manager to join the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at King's College London, the UK's flagship Dementia Research institute.
Working closely with Dr Sarah Marzi, you will play a central role in supporting an internationally recognised research programme focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying dementia and resilience to neurodegeneration.
This is a unique opportunity to work at the heart of a world-leading research environment, collaborating with scientists, clinicians, funders, people affected by dementia, professional services teams and international partners. You will help translate ambitious scientific goals into successful project delivery, enabling cutting-edge research with the potential to improve the lives of people affected by dementia.
A major focus of the role will be supporting EMERALD, a collaborative programme funded through the Dementia Frontiers Fund. The postholder will also support the wider Marzi research portfolio, including existing and future grants, partnerships, public engagement activities and strategic initiatives.
You will work closely with the UK DRI Institute Manager and Centre administration team, School professional services teams and King's central services, acting as a key link between researchers and operational teams to ensure projects are delivered efficiently, compliantly and on time.
Key responsibilities include:
- Coordinate and manage all operational aspects of the projects, ensuring delivery against agreed objectives, milestones, timelines and budgets.
- Ensure the projects comply with all relevant funder requirements, governance frameworks, ethical approvals, regulatory standards, institutional policies and research governance procedures.
- Develop, implement and maintain effective project management processes, systems and documentation to support successful project delivery.
- Monitor project progress, risks, deliverables and deadlines, proactively identifying issues and implementing solutions to ensure successful outcomes.
- Prepare and coordinate progress reports, funder submissions, project documentation, financial reports, performance updates and meeting papers.
- Support financial management activities, including budget monitoring, expenditure tracking, resource allocation and financial reporting.
- Organise and support meetings, steering groups, governance committees, PPI groups and activities, workshops and project events, including preparing papers, agendas, minutes and action logs.
- Maintain effective communication and collaboration between investigators, researchers, funders, industry partners, patient representatives, public contributors and external stakeholders.
- Coordinate project communications, dissemination activities, websites, online content, publicity and stakeholder engagement activities where required.
- Support Patient and Public Involvement activities including participant recruitment, data collection activities, research operations, and meeting coordination ensuring activities are conducted in accordance with approved protocols and procedures.
- Monitor data quality, data management processes and compliance requirements, ensuring that sensitive information is managed appropriately and securely.
- Support recruitment, onboarding, and HR processes relating to project staff where required.
- Coordinate research-related travel, meetings, workshops, conferences and engagement activities.
- Develop and maintain productive relationships with the UK DRI administrative and operational team along with the School of Neuroscience professional services teams, research management, finance, procurement, contracts, HR and governance teams.
- Provide administrative, operational and project-management support to Dr Sarah Marzi and her research teams to ensure the smooth and efficient running of research projects.
- Support the establishment, coordination and ongoing management of Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) activities and groups, ensuring the meaningful involvement of people affected by dementia in research.
About you:
You are a highly organised and proactive project professional who enjoys bringing people together, solving problems and turning ambitious plans into reality. You have experience coordinating complex projects involving multiple stakeholders, competing priorities and changing deadlines and you will be equally comfortable working with researchers, professional services colleagues, funders, patient representatives and external partners, building effective relationships and ensuring projects move forward. You will be confident managing budgets, monitoring risks, coordinating governance processes and producing high-quality reports and documentation. Most importantly, you will be someone who takes initiative, spots issues before they become problems, and enjoys finding practical solutions.
You may already work in a research, higher education, healthcare, charity or innovation environment, or you may bring transferable project management experience from another sector.
This role would particularly suit someone who is motivated by supporting world-class research and wants to be part of a collaborative and mission-driven environment.
Qualifications and Knowledge
- Degree or equivalent qualification in a relevant discipline, or substantial equivalent experience.
- Experience in project management, research administration or programme management.
- Knowledge of research governance, regulatory, ethical and compliance requirements.
Experience
- Proven experience coordinating high value complex research projects, programmes, grants, or research activities.
- Experience managing multiple priorities, deadlines, deliverables and stakeholders simultaneously.
- Experience preparing reports, project documentation, meeting papers and presentations.
- Experience of budget monitoring, expenditure management and financial reporting.
Skills
- Excellent organisational, planning and project-management skills.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate complex information effectively to a wide range of audiences.
- Strong attention to detail and ability to work accurately under pressure.
- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently using initiative and sound judgment.
- Competence in data management, quality assurance and handling confidential or sensitive information.
- Highly proficient IT skills, including Microsoft 365 and other digital systems used to support project delivery.
- Ability to build effective relationships and work collaboratively with academic, clinical, professional services and external stakeholders.
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Key details
- Location: UK DRI at Imperial
- £50,733 - £59,484 per annum
About the role
We are looking for a curious and highly motivated postdoctoral Research Associate to join a collaborative team to take a central role in a project investigating how TSPO - a mitochondrial protein - protects against vascular dysfunction in early-stage Alzheimer's disease. This British Heart Foundation-funded project sits at the intersection of cardiovascular and dementia research. You will be jointly mentored by Professor David Owen and Dr Samuel Barnes (Group Leader, UK Dementia Research Institute), with both supervisors actively committed to your scientific development and career progression. With membership of the UK DRI, you will also benefit from connection to a national network of multi-disciplinary researchers.
Our groups are committed to flexible working, open science, and creating an environment where everyone can thrive. We are happy to discuss the role informally before you apply.
What you would be doing
Based on promising findings in rodent models, we are running a clinical study to test whether a TSPO ligand improves cerebrovascular function in patients with early Alzheimer's disease, and whether this in turn reduces network hyperexcitability. The role will involve collection of data in study participants using MRI and EEG approaches. A background in cellular biology and data analysis is essential, and a background in neuroscience or vascular are desirable.
What we are looking for
You will hold, or be near completion of, a PhD in neuroscience, psychology, biomedical engineering, physics, cellular biology or a related field, and demonstrate:
- Experience acquiring human neurophysiological or neuroimaging data — EEG, MRI, or both.
- Experience working directly with research participants
- Proficiency in coding, for example in MATLAB, and in handling large-scale neural datasets.
- A developing publication record, with at least one first-author manuscript published or in late-stage revision.
- Knowledge of vascular biology
- Ability to work collaboratively within a multi-disciplinary team.
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Key details
- Location: UK DRI at Imperial
- Salary: This PhD position includes a tax-free stipend of £23,805 per annum and Home fees for 3 years, and up to six months of writing up stipend if required.
About the Project
Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship funded by the Edmond J. Safra Foundation within Dr Cynthia Sandor’s group in the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London.
This studentship will focus on:
Predicting Insulin Resistance from Blood Transcriptomes: A Peripheral Window onto Brain Insulin Resistance in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease
The successful candidate will be based at Imperial’s White City Campus and will join an active and collaborative postgraduate community. The project will be supervised by Dr Cynthia Sandor, an Edmond and Lily Safra Assistant Professor in Parkinson's Disease in the Department of Brain Sciences, and a UK DRI Group Leader.
Background
Parkinson’s disease affects over 10 million people worldwide and its prevalence is increasing with ageing populations. Type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance are established risk factors for Parkinson’s disease. Increasingly, attention has turned to brain insulin resistance, a state in which neurons themselves respond poorly to insulin, with impaired signalling. Unlike peripheral insulin resistance, brain insulin resistance reflects blunted neuronal insulin action and has been linked to mitochondrial dysfunction, α-synuclein aggregation, and neuroinflammation, yet its genetic and biomarker basis in Parkinson’s disease remains poorly understood.
Recent work from Dr Sandor’s group and collaborators (Volpato et al. 2025) has shown that vulnerable dopamine-producing neurons show increased activity in renin–angiotensin system signalling and metabolic stress pathways, and that genetic risk for Parkinson’s overlaps with risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiometabolic traits. Epidemiological studies also suggest that certain blood pressure and diabetes medications may reduce Parkinson’s risk, but we do not yet know which patient subgroups benefit most. A central obstacle is that brain insulin resistance cannot be measured directly at scale in patients, which motivates an accessible, blood-based readout that can stratify individuals and probe the metabolic dimension of neurodegeneration across large cohorts.
Project Overview
This PhD project will develop and validate a computational model that predicts insulin resistance from peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) transcriptomes, and apply it to existing Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease PBMC datasets. Peripheral insulin resistance is directly predictable from blood and is only partially coupled to brain insulin resistance, so the PBMC-derived score is positioned as a scalable, blood-based proxy for the central process rather than a direct measure of it. The project is entirely computational and combines machine learning with single-cell and bulk transcriptomics and rigorous cross-dataset validation.
Key objectives include:
- Signature derivation: Train a transferable insulin-resistance predictor on metabolically labelled reference cohorts using regression and classification models with per-cell-type pseudobulk analysis to localise the signature to specific immune subsets.
- Data integration & validation: Harmonise heterogeneous single-cell and bulk PBMC datasets (using Harmony, scVI/scANVI and ComBat), explicitly controlling for age, sex, BMI, medication and ancestry, and validate the signature with strict leave-one-dataset-out cross-validation and an external labelled cohort.
- Transfer to PD cohorts: Apply the validated signature to existing Parkinson’s PBMC datasets to impute per-subject and cell-type-resolved insulin-resistance scores, and test whether these scores are elevated relative to controls and track disease severity and cognition.
- Brain-IR alignment: Where central insulin-resistance anchors are available (for example intranasal-insulin EEG/fMRI, FDG-PET, or published brain insulin-resistance signatures), correlate the peripheral score with these measures to establish how far the blood-based readout reflects the brain process.
Training and Environment
The student will receive training in:
- Machine learning for transcriptomic prediction (regression and classification)
- Single-cell and bulk RNA-seq analysis, batch integration and cell-type deconvolution
- Rigorous cross-dataset validation, confound control and reproducible research
- Integrative analysis of multi-omic and clinical data across neurodegenerative cohorts
This project provides an excellent opportunity to gain experience at the interface of machine learning, single-cell transcriptomics, and translational neuroscience.
Requirements
Applicants should hold a First Class or Upper Second-Class degree (or equivalent) in bioinformatics, computational biology, data science, statistics, machine learning, or a related quantitative discipline. A Master’s degree in a relevant field (data science, computational neuroscience, statistical genetics) is desirable. Strong programming in R or Python and an interest in single-cell transcriptomics, machine learning and large-scale cohort analyses are advantageous.
Application Process
To apply, please send the following to Dr Cynthia Sandor (c.sandor@imperial.ac.uk) or Dr Katarzyna Zoltowska (k.zoltowska@imperial.ac.uk).
- Your CV
- A brief statement outlining your research interests and motivation
- Contact details for two academic referees
For informal enquires, please contact Dr Sandor or Dr Zoltowska.