Research Technician Job Aberystwyth area,Wales UK,Research/Development

The Role
What you’ll do
Who you are – Qualifications, Experience, Knowledge and Skills required
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Benefits
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The Role

We are seeking a skilled, highly motivated and experienced Research Assistant to join the Trained Immunity – Improving Immune Health of Livestock UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project awarded to Dr Amanda Gibson, embedded within the Sêr Cymru Centre of Excellence for Bovine Tuberculosis, Vet Hub and the Department of Life Sciences at Aberystwyth University. The Research Assistant will support the Fellow, Post Doctoral Research Associate and postgraduate students to characterise trained immunity in cattle in close collaboration with project partners at Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), The Roslin Institute, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), University College Dublin (UCD) and the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAe).

A largely understudied concept for improving livestock health and reducing infectious disease burden is trained immunity. Trained immunity is a long-term functional modification of cells in the innate immune system which leads to an altered, protective response to a second unrelated challenge by an infectious agent (heterologous challenge) and is thought to be mediated by functional reprogramming of myeloid cells. However, the exact mechanisms that lead to trained immunity in livestock are not fully understood.

The Mycobacterium bovis BCG (BCG) vaccine is the best described inducer trained immunity. In this project, the aim is to use BCG as a model to map, characterise and understand trained immunity in cattle, to demonstrate heterologous protection, and evaluate the impact of BCG vaccination on antimicrobial usage within vaccinated herds across several work packages. A range of cutting-edge molecular tools (ATACseq, ChIPseq, RNAseq ) and advanced cell culture models (e.g., co-culture and Precision Cut Lung Slices) will be employed, together with applied bioinformatic approaches for data analysis and visualisation.

Relevant Publications

Netea et al., Nat. Rev. Immunol. (2020) - Defining trained immunity and its role in health and disease.

Guerra-Maupome et al., PLoS One. (2019) - Aerosol vaccination with Bacille Calmette-Guerin induces a trained innate immune phenotype in calves.

Samuel BER et al., Front. Immunol. (2024) - Evidence of innate training in bovine γδ T cells following subcutaneous BCG administration

Samuel BER et al., Immunohorizons. (2023) - Subcutaneous Bacillus Calmette-Guérin Administration Induces Innate Training in Monocytes in Preweaned Holstein Calves

Juste et al., PLoS One. (2016) - Increased Lytic Efficiency of Bovine Macrophages Trained with Killed Mycobacteria.

Remot et al., Front. Vet. Sci. (2021) - Mycobacterial Infection of Precision-Cut Lung Slices Reveals Type 1 Interferon Pathway Is Locally Induced by Mycobacterium bovis but Not M. tuberculosis in a Cattle Breed.

We welcome informal enquiries about the post. Please contact Dr Amanda Gibson, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Lecturer in Innate Immunology and Vet Hub Academic Lead, at

Appointments are normally made within 4 - 8 weeks of the closing date.

Sêr Cymru Centre of Excellence for Bovine Tuberculosis & Vet Hub

Aberystwyth University is host to the newly established Sêr Cymru Centre of Excellence for Bovine Tuberculosis and the only business accessible CL2 and CL3 research and innovation laboratories in Wales, Vet Hub. Recent investments of over £7M has created unparalleled pathogen containment facilities and infectious diseases capability in Wales, heavily supported by state-of-the-art equipment Together these investments have increased capacity and critical mass of infectious disease investigators within the Department of Life Sciences and the Faculty Sciences.

The Centre of Excellence for Bovine Tuberculosis is a national and international hub for bovine tuberculosis research, bringing together expertise in M. bovis, bovine immunology, epidemiology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics required for understanding the complexities of tuberculosis in cattle. Vet Hub and the provision of CL3 facilities, uniquely presents…


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