Research Assistant - Nuffield department of Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford

Vacancy Reference Number

142923

Closing Date

14 Oct 2019

Salary

£29,716 to £34,804 per annum

Address

Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford

Duration

Fixed-term/contract

Grade 6: £29,176 - £34,804 p.a.

An exciting opportunity has developed for a highly motivated individual who is interested in developing skills for a career in clinical psychology, cognitive neuroscience or clinical research. This post aims to integrate the clinical and cognitive assessments, which the Oxford Autoimmune Neurology Group (OANG) and the Oxford Cognitive Neurology Group run to assess the clinical and cognitive outcomes of patients with autoimmune forms of encephalitis.

Work by these teams and others has shown that patients with autoantibody-associated encephalitis have a range of neurological impairments – including deficits in memory (e.g. Pertzov et al., 2013). This is an exciting field of neurology and neuroscience as the diseases are often partly treatable with available medications and the patient phenotypes can inform basic immunology and understanding of brain regions involved in memory and other cognitive functions.

The postholder with work closely with Dr Sarosh Irani and Professor Masud Husain in addition to the existing clinical and scientific teams to manage all aspects of the clinical cohort.  The postholder with use cognitive tests and questionnaires to assess patients and their relatives both prospectively and retrospectively. They will also recruit and contact healthy participants/patients, and run experiments involving behavioural and psychophysiological measures.

It is essential that the postholder hold a first degree in a relevant subject, ideally psychology, neuroscience or related field. They are also expected to have excellent organisation skills and a keen interest to work in a busy, multi-disciplinary clinical research environment. Alongside this exemplary record keeping a data collection skills and expertise in MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access or equivalent software are vital. It would be beneficial to the role if the postholder had experience in cognitive testing on healthy people or patients as well as an understanding of the regulatory and governance requirements for research.

For further information, please contact Professor Masud Hussain (masud.husain@ndcn.ox.ac.uk) or Dr Sarosh Irani (sarosh.irani@ndcn.ox.ac.uk) by email.

The post is full-time for a fixed-term until 31 March 2022 in the first instance.

Only applications received before 12.00 midday on 14 October 2019 will be considered. Interviews will be held as soon as possible thereafter.

For more information and to apply, click here.