Scott J. Tebbutt

The University of British Columbia is seeking a Research Associate to join the Tebbutt Research Laboratory in the UBC James Hogg Research Centre, within the Faculty of Medicine and Division of Respiratory Medicine. The successful researcher will work under the direction of Dr. Scott J. Tebbutt, Professor of Medicine at UBC and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation at St. Paul’s Hospital. This multidisciplinary and international research programme focuses primarily on cardiothoracic transplantation, precision medicine and biomarker discovery. The Research Associate will lead and support studies involving heart and lung transplantation, with the goal of improving diagnostic accuracy, predicting transplant outcomes and enabling earlier clinical management of allograft dysfunction. The work will use patient samples from four major heart-transplant centres and one lung-transplant centre. A major component of the position is the discovery and validation of plasma metabolomic and proteomic biomarkers. The researcher will integrate metabolomics, proteomics and genomics data to identify metabolic signatures and molecular pathways associated with transplant rejection and post-transplant outcomes, and will contribute to predictive models and non-invasive diagnostic tools for clinical use. The role also contributes to the laboratory’s COVID-19 and long-COVID research. The Research Associate will help investigate host molecular endotypes associated with diverse COVID-19 outcomes and emerging viral variants in a longitudinal multi-omics cohort of 1,000 patients. Research themes include SARS-CoV-2 persistence, immune dysregulation, chronic inflammation, vascular injury, hypercoagulability and multi-organ involvement. The researcher will collaborate with clinicians, bioinformaticians and public health researchers, while contributing to hypothesis generation, project coordination, grant development, data analysis, systematic reviews, research registries, manuscripts, presentations and stakeholder engagement. The position also provides opportunities to mentor junior researchers, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students within a collaborative research environment at UBC and the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation.