Research Assistant

The Research Assistant will perform the laboratory workflow to deliver the respiratory metagenomics service to a number of referring sites. They will also assist in the validation and quality assessment of new and emerging techniques and technologies to improve the respiratory metagenomics workflow, which will be deployed to external network sites.

Additional funding has been secured to apply this technology to respiratory samples in the paediatric population with chronic airway diseases. Translational work to apply clinical metagenomic techniques to other sterile sites is ongoing. Other research themes include studies on viral evolution, resistance, and vaccine escape for SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses., This position will have responsibility for the collection and processing of routine and research generated biomedical specimens in order to support research activity across various projects within the Department of Infection. The post holder will utilise scientific and analytical techniques appropriate to the particular research requirements. They will also screen and analyse test results and report to academic and clinical colleagues. The post holder will be responsible for maintenance of databases for routine and research purposes, and communicating outcomes to clinicians and researchers within the Trust and Kings College London.

The NHS Respiratory Metagenomics Programme has been commissioned by NHS England and the government's Department of Science, Innovation and Technology to revolutionise the diagnosis and surveillance of infectious disease in the UK through cutting edge genomic technology.

The programme is a partnership between the NHS, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), and Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) to embed pathogen agnostic metagenomic testing in NHS microbiology labs and ICUs by 2029, providing same day clinical detection and real-time data signals to UKHSA's national biosurveillance platform. Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust is leading this national programme on behalf of the NHS, implementing the initial use case in respiratory infection and leading on translational research efforts with the potential to scale across multiple clinical settings. The programme will serve as a test bed for the accelerated adoption of innovation in healthcare and a proof of concept in the use of a clinical diagnostic backbone in an 'always on', real-time UK pathogen surveillance system.