Postdoctoral Research Assistant

Closing date

**Wednesday, 24 September 2025, 23:59**
- Salary

**£37,174 - £42,882 per annum**
**Grade 7**
- Contract type

**Fixed Term**

Campus
- City

School/Directorate
- School of Life Sciences

Unit/Department
- MRC PPU

Unit: MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit

Contract type: Fixed-Term

Grade 7 (£37,174-£42,882)

MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC PPU):
School of Life Sciences (SLS):
The MRC PPU is based within the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, a world-class academic institution with a reputation for the excellence of its research, its high-quality teaching and student experience, and the strong impact of its activities outside academia. With 900 staff from over 60 countries worldwide the School provides a dynamic, multi-national, collegiate and diverse environment with state-of-the-art laboratory, technology and teaching facilities.

Division of Signal Transduction Unit (DSTT): The Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT) was established in 1998. This division operates as a unique collaboration between scientists in the MRC PPU and signalling researchers at the University of Dundee's School of Life Sciences and the pharmaceutical industry. The DSTT is widely regarded as a model for how academia should interact with industry. The DSTT operates as a simple bridging mechanism to enable our PIs working on ubiquitylation and phosphorylation to effectively interact with major pharmaceutical companies to help accelerate the early stages of drug discovery.

We are recruiting for exceptional individuals to join as Postdoctoral Researchers in the laboratory of Prof Miratul Muqit. This is a fixed-term appointment for 36 months.

We are recruiting up to three postdoctoral scientists to join the laboratory of Professor Miratul Muqit, with expertise in signalling, cell biology, mouse neurobiology, CRISPR gene-editing or proteomics to investigate the function of the PINK1 kinase in neurons and the brain. The overarching goal of the Muqit lab is to undertake fundamental research to understand the molecular basis of the neurodegenerative disorder, Parkinson's disease (PD), through open and interdisciplinary collaborations with leading research groups across the world.

The successful applicant(s) will undertake discovery-driven research projects as part of a Medical Research Council Programme Grant Award that will lead to better understanding of PD and how to diagnose and treat it. The Muqit Lab is exemplar in collaborative research to make robust discoveries and share data openly in the field to accelerate progress.

The project(s) will investigate mechanisms of the PINK1 kinase which is frequently mutated in early-onset PD and is a master-regulator of mitophagy in brain. Previous research by the Muqit lab has contributed to the development of targeted therapies for PINK1-induced mitophagy whuch entered clinical trials for PD patients last year. However, much knowledge on PINK1 has been obtained from in vitro studies and very little is known on how the PINK1 pathway is regulated and functions in the brain and projects will be aimed at uncovering entirely new understanding of PINK1 function that may lead to new concepts for therapeutic exploitation in PD.

Relevant publications:

- Singh, P.K., Agarwal, S., Volpi, I., Wilhelm, L.P., Becchi, G., Keenlyside, A., Macartney, T., Toth, R., Rousseau, A., Masson, G.R., Ganley, I.G., Muqit, M.M. (2025) Kinome screening identifies integrated stress response kinase EIF2AK1 / HRI as a negative regulator of PINK1 mitophagy signalling. Science Adv 11: eadn2528.
- Bagnoli, E., Lin Y-E., Burel, S., Jaimon, E., Antico, O., Themistokleous C., Nikoloff, J.M., Morella, I., Watzlawik J.O., Fiesel, F.C., Springer, W., Tonelli, F., Brooks, S.P., Sunnett, S.B., Brambilla, R., Alessi, D.R., Pfeffer, S.R., Muqit, M.M. (2025) Endogenous LRRK2 and PINK1 function in a convergent neuroprotective ciliogenesis pathway in the brain. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 122: e2412029122.
- Antico, O., Thompson, P.W., Hertz, N.T., Muqit, M.M., Parton, L.E. (2025) Targeting mitophagy in neurodegenerative diseases. Nature Rev Drug Discov 24: 276-299.
- Raimi, O.G., Ojha, H., Ehses, K., Dederer, V., Lange, S.M., Rivera, C.P., Deegan, T.D., Chen, Y., Wightman, M., Toth, R., Labib, K.P.M., Mathea, S., Ranson, N., Fernandez-Busnadiego, R., Muqit, M.M. (2024) Mechanism of human PINK1 activation at the TOM complex in a reconstituted system. Science Adv 10: eadn7191.
- Lenka, D.R., Dahe, S.V., Antico, O., Sahoo, P., Prescott, A.R., Muqit, M.M., Kumar, A. (2024) Additional feedforward mechanism of Parkin activation via binding of phospho-UBL and RING0 in trans. eLife 13: RP96699 doi: 10.7554/eLife.96699

Your priorities will include:

- Primary mouse differentiation protocols to CNS cell types including neurons and astrocytes.
- Design and performing kinome-wide CRSIPR/Cas9 knock-down screen and sgRNA enrichment analysis.
- Proteomic discovery platforms