- Vacancy Reference Number
- BTRE gene therapy post-doc
- Closing Date
- 17 Oct 2021
- Salary
- Salary Scale: Appointment will be made on point 1 of the post-doctoral researcher, Level 2, scale
- Address
- Disciple of Physiology, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin
- Duration
- 4 years
Project title: Gene therapy approaches for brain tumour related epilepsy
Overview of project: Seizures are a frequent and severe symptom for patients with brain tumours and are poorly controlled with current medical and surgical treatments. Brain tumour patients with seizures report lower quality of life both physically and mentally compared to patients without seizures. A hallmark of seizures in patients with brain tumours is an increased amount of a particular type of neurotransmitter around the tumour. In the healthy brain, levels of glutamate are tightly regulated. However, in brain tumours, glutamate levels are elevated and increased glutamate concentrations overexcite neurons around the tumour which generates seizures. This increase in glutamate levels presents opportunities for novel treatments based on gene therapy approaches. The project will explore the potential to use a novel gene therapy approach to limit pathological over-excitation of peritumoural neurons. The project will use a variety of animal and ex vivo human tissue models to develop this gene therapy approach for clinical translation. We anticipate that this technology will arrest seizures in patients where tumour related seizures are difficult to treat with conventional drugs or in circumstances where surgery may not be an option.
Candidate requirements:
Essential
• The candidate will have a PhD in Neuroscience or related discipline
• The candidate will have a track record of using in vivo and/or in vitro electrophysiological approaches
Desirable
• Experience with viral vector gene therapy technology
• Experience with using ex vivo human brain tissue
• Experience with organotypic brain slice culture techniques
Further Information
For more information on Trinity College Dublin and our research culture, please visit http://www.tcd.ie/research/
For more information on the Cunningham laboratory research group, please visit https://www.cunninghamlab.org/
Application procedure: Applications should be submitted by email with a CV and cover letter to mark.cunningham@tcd.ie with the subject line ‘SFI Postdoc application’
Contact Details
Informal enquiries in relation to this position should be directed to Prof. Mark Cunningham (mark.cunningham@tcd.ie) in the first instance with subject line ‘BTRE gene therapy post-doc enquiry’
