Oxford Brain Bank Research Technician

Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences (NDCN), John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford, OX3 9DU The Oxford Brain Bank (OBB) is a research tissue bank based in the Department of Neuropathology, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. It hosts tissue from several clinical cohorts including Brains for Dementia Research (BDR), the Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing (OPTIMA), Discovery Parkinson's Disease cohort, Oxford Motor Neuron Disease cohort, Concussion Legacy Foundation and Autism BrainNet cohorts. The aim of the OBB is to increase the availability of high-quality human tissue for research into normal and abnormal function of the human brain, spinal cord and other relevant peripheral tissues. The bank operates under the guidelines established by the Human Tissue Authority. The aim of this post is to provide comprehensive technical support to the OBB in maintaining and managing this valuable resource. The applicant will need to be able to work independently - embedding tissue, sectioning (frozen and paraffin embedded tissue), staining with immunohistochemistry, tissue archiving, archive maintenance, quality control, document management and a variety of general administrative and laboratory duties. Good communication, accurate record keeping, planning and organizational skills are essential. The applicant will work with director of the OBB, Prof Laura Parkkinen, and other members of the biobank team namely governance and tissue banking manager and tissue co-ordinator, neuropathologists, researchers and NHS staff in a friendly multidisciplinary environment in state-of-the art facilities. The Oxford Brain Bank (OBB) is state-of-the-art, integrated clinical research facility that supports local, national and international research in neurological disease through collection, curation and provision of diseased and normal reference samples of central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral biosamples (e.g. cerebrospinal fluid, CSF). The OBB supports research programmes into nervous system development, normal ageing and dementia, Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, autism and traumatic brain injury. It also supports work on brain tumours, muscle and nerve disorders. Additionally, the OBB’s historical archive comprises cases of many rare diseases, as well as large cohorts of neurodegenerative diseases, infective diseases, trauma and cerebrovascular diseases. The OBB is hosted in the Department of Neuropathology of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and the Academic Unit of Neuropathology of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences of Oxford University. Storage facilities exist in the West Wing of the John Radcliffe Hospital and OBB stores samples and data relevant for research into neurological diseases. Samples comprise biofluids mostly obtained during a donor’s participation in clinical research studies, and organs, tissue samples and biofluids donated after death. A tissue coordinator and specialist nurses manage the consent seeking process and clinical data collection with the local clinical teams. From each donation, a specific set of samples is prepared to obtain a detailed pathological diagnosis and a set of pathological data, and a wider set of samples is stored to be used in research. Researchers wanting to access samples and/or data from the OBB submit applications to the biobank which are reviewed by a specialist access committee. If an application is approved, the OBB must identify which donors and which samples are best suited to be dispatched to the researchers, whilst ensuring the confidentiality of donors at all times. The OBB operates under a licence from the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) and is required to comply with stringent standards for data protection and sample trace.The post is full time for a fixed term of 12 months in the first instance.