i3s – Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (hereinafter i3) is opening a call to award a grant for the development of R&D activities by PhD students or by Master´s enrolled in non-academic degree courses integrated into the educational project of a higher education institution, within the project "Decoding the non-code of beta-cells cis-regulation", financed by Fundacion “La Caixa”.
Host Institution: i3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Porto, Portugal
Scientific Area: Genetics and Genomics.
Project Title: "Decoding the non-code of beta-cells cis-regulation".
Workplan:
Type-2 Diabetes (T2D) is considered a pandemic of the 21st century, resulting in severe comorbidities as cardiovascular diseases, contributing to premature death. T2D is partially associated to endocrine pancreas dysfunction and is known to have a genetic susceptibility. The vast majority of sequence variants associated to T2D overlap with non-coding cis-regulatory sequences, that might perturb gene expression, contributing to increased susceptibility to T2D. However, it is still unclear how some nucleotide modifications impair cis-regulatory sequences, while others are apparently interchangeable without functional consequences.
The selected candidate will be involved in a project that will first functionally validate a set of beta-cells enhancers. Then, we will build reporter constructs for a group of selected enhancers, and use them to perform a mutagenesis screen with CRISPR-Cas9 coupled to next generation sequencing. With this screen, we will identify nucleotide modifications that affect enhancer activity. To address how these mutations impact the binding of transcription factors we will combine locus specific enhancer pulldown with Mass Spectrometry. Finally, we will validate these predictions by performing single-nucleotide targeted mutagenesis and characterizing the phenotypic impact in a human beta-cell line. In this project we will decipher the nucleotide code required for the activity of beta-cells enhancers to determine how changes in the non-coding DNA impact transcription factors binding, gene expression and, ultimately, T2D development.
Admission requirements:
Mandatory:
We are looking for a highly motivated candidate with a Master degree in Biology, or related fields, with a final classification equal or higher than 15 values, and being enrolled in a non-academic degree courses integrated into the educational project of a higher education institution, at the time of the start of the contract; or in a PhD Program, preferentially in Biology, or related areas, at the time of the start of the contract;
Preferential:
- Candidates with a scientific publication track record.
- Candidates that have creativity, curiosity, perseverance, dynamism and passion for basic science.
- Candidates fluent in written and spoken English.
Legislation and other applicable regulations: Research Fellowship Holder Statute enacted by Law no. 40/2004 of August 18th, as amended; i3S Research Grants Regulation.
Place: The research activites will be hosted at i3S, under the scientific coordination of Dr. Jose Bessa.
Length time: The duration of the fellowship is 12 months, renewable until the maximum of 32 months. The expected starting date is 1st may 2022.
Monthly maintenance stipend: €1.144,64, according to the values table of FCT, at Portugal (https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/Tabela_Valores_SMM_LOE_2021.pdf ). The payments will be made by bank transference.
Research grants may also include other components, as the voluntary social insurance, under the terms of the Research Fellowship Holder Statute, article 10.
Evaluation Criteria: The candidate selection will be performed taking into account the Admission Requirements (described above), with evaluation of the curriculum vitae (65%), motivation letter (10%) and interview (25%). Up to 3 candidates with top evaluation of curriculum vitae and motivation letter will be invited to an interview. Candidates will be ranked taking into account the full evaluation (in a scale from 1 to 100).
Evaluation Pannel: President – Dr. José Bessa; Other members: Dr. Fabio Ferreira and Dr. Florence Janody.
Information and Publicity of Funding Granted: The evaluation results will be published on the i3S website. The candidates will be notified by email. Candidates have a period of ten working days to, if they wish, express their opinion at the prior hearing, by email to [email protected] .
Applications: The call will be open between march 18th to march 31th of 2022. The applications must be submitted electronically at:
https://dozer.i3s.up.pt/applicationmanagement/#/addapplications/Fellow_BIDLCX2021i3S180331032022
The required documents composing the applications are: Certificate of Qualifications, Curriculum Vitae, letter of motivation, proof of enrollment in a PhD program or for the master´s in a non-academic degree course integrated into the educational project of a higher education institution, (proof of enrollment or a honor statement of capacity to enroll in the
aforementioned cycle of studies or course until the grant is contracted), and other documents, considered as relevant by the candidate, considering the admission requirements and preferential criteria.
Documents to be provided at the time of contracting: in addition to those mentioned in the previous point, it is necessary to present proof of enrollment in the study cycle or in non-academic degree course integrated into the educational project of a higher education institution.
Full announcement at: https://dozer.i3s.up.pt:8443/fileupload/downloadfile/viewpdfnewtab/87499...
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