Senior Researcher in Agentic AI for Cancer Vaccine Development

Senior Researcher in Agentic AI for Cancer Vaccine Development

Oxford Centre for Immuno-Oncology, Old Road Campus Research Building, Roosevelt Drive, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7DQ

The Nuffield Department of Medicine is recruiting a Senior Researcher in Agentic AI for Cancer Vaccines to join the Oxford Centre for Immuno-Oncology and take a leading role in the UK Cancer Vaccine AI Scientist & Supercomputing Project. This government-supported national programme brings together sovereign AI supercomputing, AI Scientists, automated laboratories, advanced immunology and near-patient manufacturing to accelerate the development of personalised cancer vaccines for NHS patients.

Reporting to Dr Lennard Lee, you will serve as Research Group Leader / Senior Researcher within the programme, leading a significant interdisciplinary research project and helping shape its scientific direction, technical delivery and wider strategy. You will provide specialist leadership across artificial intelligence, agentic AI, computational biology, scientific software and research computing, including development of the programme's AI Scientist and its integration with frontier and open-source AI models, sovereign supercomputing and autonomous laboratory technologies. You will also manage research staff and resources, contribute to funding applications, produce significant research outputs and build collaborations across AI, cancer biology, research computing and laboratory automation.

You should hold a relevant PhD/DPhil with substantial post-qualification research experience and have a recognised national research reputation in artificial intelligence, computational biology, AI-enabled science or a related area. You will need a strong publication or technical research record, experience of leading complex interdisciplinary projects and managing research or technical staff, and demonstrable experience of designing and building agentic AI systems or comparable AI-enabled scientific software. Practical experience with frontier AI systems, open-source foundation models, AI or research-computing infrastructure and integration with laboratory automation is essential, together with significant knowledge or research experience in cancer biology, genomics, immunology or a closely related field.

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 22 October 2026 will be considered. Please quote 189245 on all correspondence.