Imaging Informatician

**This is a fixed term opportunity for 2 years.**

This role is based at Alderley Park, with the flexibility to work remotely for part of the working week.

Based at Alderley Park, Medicines Discovery Catapult is a national facility connecting the UK community to accelerate innovative drug discovery. We provide unique scientific capabilities and act as a gateway to UK resources and expertise, supporting UK SMEs to drive the development and industrialisation of new approaches for the discovery of new medicines.

By validating new ways of discovering medicines and driving key talent and expertise across the sector, we will support the UK life sciences industry, SMEs and innovators to deliver growth for the UK economy and maintain the UK’s heritage position as a global leader in medicines R&D. Ultimately, new industrialised technologies are vital for delivering new medicines to patients, faster.

We are looking for the very best people to join the Medicines Discovery Catapult team in driving the UK to the forefront of commercial success for medicines discovery, committing to place the patient at the beginning of discovery and helping the sector move faster to the patient.

The values of the Catapult are:

- Excellence - we continually strive to deliver the best solutions for our partners and for each other. In everything we do, we instil confidence.
- Integrity - Our strong commitment to what we do and why we are here drives us to do the right thing for our partners and each other.
- Community - We’re a strong team, we work well together, and we respect each other.
- Innovation - We’re driven by the need to make a difference. We constantly look for ways to drive change in our sector and how we work.

**Role purpose**

The successful applicant will perform a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art methods used in analysing imaging data obtained as part of the drug discovery process, in order to identify the scenarios that will benefit from QC when it becomes available.

The person will have a good understanding of the algorithms and methods that underpin the analysis of imaging data in the life sciences such as, for example, data from in vivo imaging, microscopy, and spatial Omics methods. The person should have practical experience of handling some of these data types and will work closely with partners in this project who have quantum computing expertise.

This is a great opportunity to gain a thorough understanding of the many ways in which imaging is used for drug discovery and, with the support of the informatics team, to implement state of the art image processing methods based on existing computing toolboxes. These methods will in turn serve as benchmarks for comparison with quantum computing approaches. The project output will constitute a valuable resource to the drug discovery community and will ensure that the latter is prepared for the adoption of quantum computing at the earliest opportunity.

MDC provides a diverse and vibrant research environment in which to gain experience and new skills. In addition, the role offers opportunities to play a key part in interactions with external partners at the cutting edge of technology.

**Main duties and responsibilities**
- Survey the current state-of-the-art, classical computing-based, imaging methods applied to the drug discovery process, and
- identify areas where these methods’ inherent technical limitations, for image acquisition and processing, restrict the biological and therapeutic questions that can be addressed.
- Present findings to the QuPharma consortium, including pharmaceutical companies and SMEs, increasing community awareness of the potential utility of QC approaches to the challenges of imaging in drug discovery.
- Implement state of the art image analysis workflows to ensure that MDC builds its capabilities in line with its strategy. The emphasis will be on the more challenging workflows, for example the effective handling of big data and the merging of heterogeneous imaging data.
- Work with key project partners including the University of Oxford, NQCC, SeeQC and Riverlane to assist in developing detailed quantum computing drug discovery use cases.

**Essential qualifications, experience and knowledge**
- PhD in natural sciences, or degree with proven experience of working with imaging data in the life sciences.
- Good knowledge of one or more drug discovery-aligned imaging modalities, including a thorough understanding of the principles and assumptions underpinning the corresponding data analysis methods.
- Knowledge of imaging informatics analytical tools such as, for example, Fiji, R and python.
- Practical experience of implementing workflows for image analysis that result in scientific insight.

**Desirable qualifications, experience and knowledge**
- Experience of the drug discovery process.
- A willingness to broaden one’s knowledge regarding the many imaging modalities used in the drug discovery process.
- Some unde