Postdoctoral position in Bioengineering and Genetics 1063 views

ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences is offering a postdoctoral position in Bioengineering and Genetics. The position is available to a well-qualified, highly motivated and dynamic young scientist who wishes to enhance his/her scientific career in a friendly and stimulating environment. The successful candidate will be joining the Group of Neurophotonics and Mechanical Systems Biology group led by Michael Krieg.

Tasks and responsibilities:

• The main task of the advertised position is to investigate the fundamental physical principle of how cells in general and neurons in particular sense mechanical stresses at the molecular level.
• The overarching goal will be to establish a mathematical model of mechano-transduction, informed by genetic and biochemical experiments.
• The position is targeted at Postdocs with prior experience in systems biology or bioengineering with strong background in molecular biology and microscopy.
• The selected candidate will create transgenic animals expressing force reporters in candidate mechanoreceptors and molecular methods to interfere with mechano-signaling.
• The project is targeted to provide a fundamental path linking mechanical switches to changes in cellular function, thus enabling us to engineer a mechanogenetic switch in model cells as an orthogonal tool to control gene expression and cellular functions.

Requirements:

• Applicant must hold an internationally-recognized Ph.D.-equivalent degree (or evidence of its completion in the nearest future) preferably in bio-engineering, biosystems design or molecular genetics.
• Applicant must have a proven track record of biophysics and fluorescence microscopy.
• Applicant having experience in genetic model organism such as Drosophila or C elegans and/or mammalian tissue culture would hold advantage.
• Applicant with experience in mathematical modeling and/or image processing is considered an asset.
• No restrictions of citizenship apply to the ICFO post-doctoral contracts.

Duration:  01 year; renewable for a total of up to 3 years.

Applications:

Application must include:

• Presentation letter with a declaration of interest (include link to GitHub account with well annotated code)
• CV
• Contact details of two potential referees.