Overview The Blundell lab at the University of Cambridge is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to study the clonal evolution of the endometrium and how it goes awry in endometrial cancer and endometriosis. Both are common and diagnosed late, yet preceded by somatic changes that arise years before onset. The project will generate and model new datasets to understand how the endometrium's clonal composition evolves across cycles and reproductive age, and how this shapes disease risk.
Project The endometrium is shed and rebuilt hundreds of times across reproductive life from a small pool of long-lived stem cells - an exceptional system for studying how tissue regeneration shapes disease. You will help develop an assay to lineage-trace endometrial stem-cell clones non-invasively from menstrual fluid, combining duplex sequencing of primary material with protocadherin (PCDH) methylation barcoding to read the clonal landscape of the ageing endometrium. You will then build mechanistic models of endometrial population dynamics - the mutation, drift and hormone-driven selection acting within each cycle and across a lifetime - using data from human samples and a menstruating-mouse model.
Candidate Candidates should have (or be close to completing) a PhD in a quantitative discipline - mathematics, physics, statistics, genomics or quantitative biology - with an interest in cancer and somatic evolution. It will suit someone eager both to generate data at the bench and analyse it mathematically.
Lab and environment The Blundell lab is part of the Early Cancer Institute, Department of Oncology, embedded in the CRUK Cambridge Centre on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, with access to human tissue samples, state-of-the-art sequencing, and collaborations with world-class physicists, biologists and clinicians. More at www.blundelllab.com.
Enquiries
This is a fixed-term post of one year. Informal enquiries should be directed to Jamie Blundell ([email protected]). Applicants should submit their application alongside a statement of interest. The closing date is 5th August 2026.
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Applicants must have (or be close to obtaining) a PhD.
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