Greg Towers

Queen Mary University of London is advertising a Postdoctoral Research Associate position in the Blizard Institute , working with Professor Greg Towers and his team. The project is funded by a Wellcome Discovery Award and focuses on transposable element activation and its relationship with innate immune signalling across disease contexts including viral infection (including SARS-CoV-2), autoimmune disease , and cancer . The research will examine the transcriptional and evolutionary mechanisms that drive transposable element activation and their role in regulating innate immunity. This opportunity is well suited to candidates with interests in biology , medical science , virology , genomics , bioinformatics , molecular evolution , phylogenetics , and statistics . The postholder will carry out independent and collaborative research, contribute to student supervision, and work in a multidisciplinary environment with virologists, biochemists, immunologists, and computational biologists. Applicants should hold a PhD in a relevant subject and have experience quantifying transposable elements at family and locus levels. Essential experience includes analysis of RNA-seq , ChIP-seq , and ATAC-seq data; development of reproducible bioinformatics workflows; working with controlled-access genomic datasets; and use of Linux , HPC/cluster computing , and R and/or Python . Experience in innate immune signalling in relevant disease settings is desirable. The role is a fixed-term appointment for 24 months at full time (1.0 FTE) , with a salary of £39,187–£52,790 per annum . The closing date is 2026-11-08 . Interested candidates should apply through the Queen Mary University of London recruitment portal and review the job pack for full application details.