Jesus College, together with the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford, is pleased to announce the funding of a new Postdoctoral Research Scientist to join the Riley Group at the Institute of Developmental and Regenerative Medicine (IDRM).
Working under the leadership of Professor Paul Riley, Director of the IDRM and Professorial Fellow in Medicine at Jesus, the post-holder will be involved with a research team working on determining the mechanisms of optimal immunomodulation after a heart attack.
Professor Paul Riley, Director of the IDRM and Professorial Fellow in Medicine at Jesus College.
The IDRM is a stand-alone research institute housed in the IMS-Tetsuya Nakamura Building, on the Old Road Medical Campus. It is dedicated to meeting an ambitious challenge: two thirds of all deaths world-wide are due to non-communicable diseases, many of which are cardiovascular, neurological or immune system disorders that have a developmental origin, representing an urgent unmet clinical need. The mission of the IDRM is the development of new drugs and therapeutic strategies to tackle these chronic illnesses.
Professor Riley is the Cardiovascular theme lead at the IDRM, with additional leadership in Neuroscience and Immunology provided by Professors Matthew Wood and Georg Hollander, respectively. Professor Hollander is Professorial Fellow in Developmental Medicine at Jesus College.
Professor Riley’s group is located on the IDRM Cardiovascular Floor, studying heart development and regeneration after a heart attack to prevent heart failure. The new research post will join the Riley Group in a collaborative study with Professor Hollander to investigate the role of autoimmunity during heart failure, and how the release of cardiac proteins after a heart attack can lead to loss of tolerance, activation of heart-specific T cells, and the generation of anti-heart antibodies in draining lymph nodes, which prolong cardiac injury after the initial insult, and accelerate progression to heart failure.
The creation of this post is thanks to a new philanthropic donation to Jesus College and is a welcome addition to the Riley Group research team. Professor Riley commented, “This very generous gift will establish formal research links between the College and the IDRM, and makes possible an important collaboration; linking our cardiovascular programme with my close colleague Georg Hollander’s immunology expertise, which is precisely the type of multidisciplinary research the Institute was designed to facilitate.”
The new Riley Group Postdoctoral Research Scientist will hold a Jesus College Junior Research Fellowship, and will become a member of the College’s SCR. The post will be advertised later this year, with a start date of July 2024.
For more information about the Riley Group’s research click here.