Research Associate in Topological Data Analysis for Cell Biology in Didcot

The Rosalind Franklin Institute (the Franklin) is a technology institute established by the UK Government as a unique centre committed to advancing tools that are needed to transform healthcare in the future. The Institute brings together researchers in life and physical sciences, and engineering, to develop a spectrum of tools which we will use to image, interpret and intervene in biological systems. These insights will speed up the discovery of new medicines, help find new diagnostics and contribute to a deeper understanding of human health and disease.

This is an exciting research opportunity to join the VirtuAI Cell project which aims to develop a virtual mapping of intracellular contents of biological cells. This leads to the ultimate goal of running in-silico cell simulations that use such mappings to model how the dynamics of intracellular contents may modulate in response to various types of cell disturbances; e.g., due to the injection of a drug molecule; or the intracellular growth of cancer promoting mutations.

The Research Associate will develop and apply persistent homology to automatically classify cellular structure in experimental 2-D microscopy and 3-D tomography data, to help build a virtual mapping of biological cells. The role-holder will use persistent homology to represent and classify biomedical structure and explore how such structural representations can track over multi-scale image resolutions. The work may also involve applying topological data analysis (TDA) to assist with the design, construction and deployment of new feature engineering and optimisation strategies for the machine-learning (ML) modelling of cellular data.

Key Responsibilities:

• Employ persistent homology to represent and classify structures in cell biology, using experimental data from 2-D microscopy images and 3-D tomograms.
• Analyse and interpret results from persistent homology in liaison with experts in cell biology.
• Apply persistent homology to track structural representations of biocellular species over multi-scale image resolutions.
• Curate large volumes of simulated data to help develop persistent homology for cell biology.
• Apply TDA to assist ML modellers with the feature engineering and optimisation of cellular data.
• Create data representations using TDA to help make more efficient ML models for cell biology.
• Perform or supervise data annotation for training and evaluation purposes where necessary.
• Plan data acquisitions with experimentalists who conduct them, analyse and interpret results and supervise delivery of outputs (e.g. research report, patent application) in a scientific/technology area of interest.
• Work within a project team, contributing to wider projects around key Challenges.
• Lead major contributions to outputs from research including papers, patents and both internal and external presentations.
• Support and develop others including day-to-day supervision of students or visitors in areas related to own research.
• Enhance your research through collaboration with other researchers and make active contributions to exchanging ideas through your own network.
• Be able to understand, interpret, create and communicate appropriately within a research context.
• Develop search and discovery skills and techniques.

This job description sets out the skills and experience we believe are needed to be able to do this job. If you think you can deliver this role then we want to hear from you, regardless of the boxes you did not tick.

In return we offer:

• 25 days holidays plus bank holidays and Christmas holiday shutdown.
• Generous pension scheme (employer’s contribution currently up to 18%).
• Group Life Assurance.
• Buying and Selling Annual Leave.
• Hybrid and flexible working.
• Training and development opportunities for staff at all levels.
• Occupational Health and wellbeing support including Employee Assistance (24/7 support and counselling).
• Health Cash Plan.
• Subsidised canteen and food outlets on campus.
• Free on-site parking.

The Franklin’s underlying aim is to produce the best science for research today, and this means resolutely embracing a diverse team, who have a wide range of experiences, skills and knowledge to push forward on the innovative work our institution delivers. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where every applicant has an equal opportunity to showcase their talents and abilities.

How to Apply: To be considered for this role, please upload a CV and cover letter explaining why you think you are the right person for this job. The closing date for applications is 23:59 on Sunday 30th August 2026.