Research Fellow

Overview

The University of Birmingham is recruiting a Research Fellow across its Department of Cardiovascular Sciences and Department of Cancer and Genomic Sciences. The post is full time and fixed term for five years, on site, and is funded by a UKRI Medical Research Council grant held by the Wragg group.

Vasculogenic mimicry is the process by which tumour cells imitate blood vessels, allowing tumours to grow more aggressively without a traditional vessel network. The group has found it to be common in paediatric soft tissue sarcomas, particularly rhabdomyosarcoma, where it is driven by developmental plasticity and enriched in relapsed and metastatic cases that have few effective treatments and five-year survival below 20 percent.

What you will do

The five-year project aims to define the mechanism of vasculogenic mimicry in rhabdomyosarcoma, identify therapies that modulate it and understand how they work, and develop therapeutics that target it. It combines in vitro and in vivo tumour and blood vessel modelling, tissue histology, advanced imaging, single cell transcriptomics and bioinformatics. The fellow collaborates with researchers in cancer and genomic, cardiovascular and metabolic sciences and with national and international partners, with opportunities to develop in research leadership, teaching and fellowship mentoring.

Requirements

Essential requirements are a PhD relevant to the research area, or near completion, or equivalent qualifications; demonstrable research experience or detailed knowledge of tumour microenvironment modelling or vascular biology, ideally both; proficiency in cell culture, 3D and co-culture assays, confocal microscopy and transcriptional profiling; and evidence of developing new methods and learning approaches outside current expertise. Home Office PIL-A/B training and experience of in vivo modelling in zebrafish or mice are desirable, as are first-author publications and conference presentations.

What you get

The starting salary is normally 36,636 to 46,049 GBP per year at Grade 7, with potential progression to 48,822 GBP once in post.

How to apply

Applications are made online. Shortlisted candidates give a 10-minute presentation on a research project they have previously worked on.

Key dates

The closing date is 20 October 2026.