2024 BNA Scholars announced
15th March 2024
Campus: Hammersmith
Contract Type: Full-time, Fixed Term until 30 November 2021
This post is on an MRC funded project investigating the neurobiology of opiate dependence, led by Professor Anne Lingford-Hughes and Dr Louise Paterson entitled: Characterizing the neurobiology of detoxification and early abstinence in opiate addiction: is there a role for NK1 antagonism to improve outcomes?
This project will be carried out in collaboration with Professor David Nutt, Professor Ray Hill and Dr Martina Di Simplicio.
The research programme will use cutting edge functional MRI to investigate brain networks of opiate dependence during and after detoxification, and to assess the impact of NK1 receptor antagonism on these networks. The aim is to identify novel brain markers and to validate the utility of the NK1 receptor as a therapeutic target for facilitation of opiate detoxification and/or relapse prevention.
We require a full time Research Associate interested in investigating brain function using computational neuroimaging techniques, to develop analytical strategies to analyse clinical and brain neuroimaging data generated by this project.
The post-holder will be expected to design functional MRI tasks, conduct piloting and testing of fMRI paradigms, construct and maintain a database of imaging and clinical information; conduct quality control and improvement procedures; generate ongoing reports and analysis of the data and implement improvements, as appropriate. In addition, the post-holder will be expected to assist with participant recruitment and data collection. To this end, the post holder will be supported by a team with extensive experience in the implementation and conduct of clinical psychopharmacological studies. The post-holder will also have access to legacy neuroimaging datasets within the group, providing the opportunity to explore multivariate and machine learning methodologies in collaboration with the ITMAT Data Sciences Group.
The successful candidate will have a PhD or equivalent in a relevant subject (e.g. neuroscience, bioinformatics, pharmacology, psychology or equivalent) with a record of research in functional neuroimaging, preferably within a clinical research environment and/or working with vulnerable clinical populations.
The ideal post-holder will have practical experience of fMRI image analysis within a clinical research environment, knowledge of proprietary imaging software programs e.g. FSL, SPM. Programming experience would be highly desirable (e.g. shell/unix scripting, C/C++, Matlab).
The post holder will be expected to develop their research career in this post in order to carry out self-initiated research programmes in functional neuroimaging and/or clinical psychopharmacology. They will be expected to undertake project management duties, supervise more junior team members, submit publications to refereed journals and contribute to grant applications for external funding.
Closing date: 01/01/2019
Interviews will take place week commencing 14th January 2019
Imperial Expectations guide the behaviour of all our staff.
Should you have any queries please contact:
Dr Louise Paterson – l.paterson@imperial.ac.uk
Committed to equality and valuing diversity, we are also an Athena SWAN Silver Award winner, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, a Disability Confident Employer and are working in partnership with GIRES to promote respect for trans people.
The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/
For more information and to apply, click here
Dr Louise Paterson: l.paterson@imperial.ac.uk