Research Associate in Liposome Technologies

Research Associate in Liposome Technologies

Location: Elani Bioinspired Engineering Group, Imperial College London, UK

The group of Yuval Elani at Imperial College London is hiring a postdoc to work on an ARIA-funded programme in mitochondrial engineering.

About the project:

You will take the lead on an ARIA-funded project to engineer new ways of reprogramming mitochondria using bacteriophages, which will be delivered to cells using liposomes. This position is about building entirely new experimental capabilities, combining drug delivery, synthetic biology, microfluidics and biomembrane engineering to unlock intracellular delivery challenges. Your work will focus on the liposome engineering aspects of the project, while collaborating closely with researchers specialising in bacteriophage engineering, synthetic biology and mitochondrial biology.

Your core focus will include:

• Designing delivery systems.You will develop methods to encapsulate bacteriophages within liposomes. You will also engineer these systems to enable efficient uptake and functional delivery into mitochondria. This will involve designing liposome formulations for stability, encapsulation efficiency and cellular uptake
• Pioneering microfluidic approaches. You will leverage state-of-the-art high-throughput screening platforms in the Elani Lab and design and optimise devices for controlled encapsulation of complex biological cargo
• Developing and deploying biological assays.You will establish assays to quantify delivery efficiency and intracellular behaviour, to investigate interactions between bacteriophages and mitochondria and to evaluate functional outcomes in cell culture systems