Postdoc positions (2x) in image analysis for cancer research

One of the biggest challenges in cancer research today is the stratification of patients depending on their predicted prognosis and response to treatment. Ability to predict these factors would lead to optimised and personalised treatment strategies that would directly impact cancer patients. Histopathological images of tumours are routinely collected at diagnosis, informing on the morphology, geography and surrounding microenvironment of cancer cells, in other words they are high-resolution comprehensive maps of tumours. Although these maps represent an invaluable source of information, they remain underutilised largely because they still need to be manually scrutinised by an expert pathologist.
Within new projects at the Yuan lab (www.yuanlab.org) and the Sottoriva lab (www.sottorivalab.org) within the Centre for Evolution and Cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research, we aim at utilising the latest machine learning and computer vision algorithms to detect hidden patterns in histopathological images that could potentially inform on the patient clinical outcome. Moreover, we will also collect tumour DNA from the same human specimens and perform DNA sequencing using the latest high-throughput genomic profiling techniques to identify the tumour specific genomic changes that drive the disease. Our goal is integrating the information from histopathological analysis and genomic data to provide a more comprehensive view of the disease and potentially increase our predictive power in the clinic.
The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) was ranked first in the Times Higher Education league table of UK university research quality from the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) for our high impact publications. We are world leaders in identifying cancer genes, discovering cancer drugs and developing precision radiotherapy. Together with our hospital partner The Royal Marsden, we are rated in the top four centres for cancer research and treatment worldwide. Our Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit is the largest academic cancer drug discovery and development group worldwide. We discover more new cancer drugs than any other academic centre in the world.
The new Centre for Evolution and Cancer within the ICR is supported by a Strategic Award from the Wellcome Trust and currently includes six research groups and one bioinformatics team. We focus on interrogating clonal evolution in tumours by studying the dynamics of heterogeneous cancer cell populations and their microenvironment. We are interested in the dynamics of cancer clone development in patients and the impact of therapy.
Applicants should have a PhD degree in computer science, systems biology, engineering or similar. Specific experience in histological / pathological image analysis is highly desirable but not essential. Excellent organisational and communication skills are essential.