Research Assistant in Cancer Vaccine Epitope Discovery & Future mRNA Manufacturing


Company:	University of Oxford
Salary:	£35,681 to £41,636 a year
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Oxford, OX3 7DQ
Working pattern:	On-site
Job type:	Contract
Posting date:	15 Oct 2026
Closing date:	26 Oct 2026

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Summary

We are seeking to appoint a We are seeking to appoint a Research Assistant (AI Scientist & Computational Cancer Biology) to join the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, working on an state of the art project funded by Advanced Research & Innovation Agency.

Reporting to Dr Lennard Lee, Programme Director, the post holder will serve as a Cancer Vaccine Epitope Discovery & Future mRNA Manufacturing Research Assistant for the UK Cancer Vaccine AI Scientist & Supercomputing Project.

The UK Cancer Vaccine AI Scientist & Supercomputing Project is a government-supported national flagship research initiative hosted by the University of Oxford. The project brings together advanced immunology, automated laboratories, sovereign AI supercomputing, and AI Scientists to develop and manufacture safer, more precise and more effective personalised cancer vaccines. Experimental findings are rapidly fed back to the AI scientist, enabling increasingly accurate predictions and accelerating translation of scientific discoveries towards NHS patient benefit.

You will provide experimental research support across cancer vaccine epitope discovery and the development of future approaches to personalised mRNA vaccine manufacturing. They will contribute to the experimental validation of AI-predicted cancer vaccine targets using immunological assays and support the development, manufacture and characterisation of experimental mRNA vaccine candidates. They will work closely with immunologists, computational scientists, AI researchers and autonomous laboratory scientists, helping connect AI-led target discovery with experimental validation and vaccine manufacturing.

The project has been recognised as one of the UK’s leading strategic research initiatives, having been referenced within both the Government’s AI for Science Strategy and the 10-Year National Cancer Plan. It is supported by major UK research funders and government organisations, including ARIA, the Medical Research Council, UK Research and Innovation, Cancer Research UK and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, alongside a consortium of more than 2,500 scientists, clinicians, engineers, patient representatives and technology experts. The successful candidate will join a highly collaborative multidisciplinary team working at the interface of artificial intelligence, computational biology, cancer immunology, robotics, software engineering and clinical research, contributing to research that aims to establish new approaches for the discovery and development of personalised cancer vaccines.

You will provide computational research support within the programme, working with large-scale cancer, genomic and immunological datasets and applying established and emerging artificial intelligence approaches to cancer vaccine research. They will use frontier and open-source AI models and agentic coding tools, contribute to the development and evaluation of AI models and scientific agents, and support computational analyses alongside cancer biologists, immunologists and AI researchers. The post holder will manage their own research and administrative activities within agreed guidelines and contribute to project planning, data analysis, research outputs and collaborative research.

Applications for this vacancy should be made online and you will need to upload a supporting statement and CV. Your supporting statement must explain how you meet each of the selection criteria for the post using examples of your skills and experience. Please restrict your documentation to your CV and supporting statement only. Any other documents will be requested at a later date.

This position is offered full time on a fixed term contract until 30 September 2030 and is funded by ARIA.

Only applications received before 12 midday on Monday, 26 October 2026 will be considered. Please quote 189246 on all correspondence.

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