Postdoctoral Researcher Hereditary Cancer

Reference: 367_R2_CM Postdoctoral Researcher Hereditary Cancer

IDIBELL is looking for Postdoctoral Researcher Hereditary Cancer to develop a project entitled “Role of immune system inborn errors as determinants of the COVID-19 severity in hospitalized patients”

About the research group

The candidate will have the opportunity to work within the Hereditary Cancer Group (https://idibell.cat/en/research/cancer-area/molecular-mechanisms-and-experimental-therapy-in-oncology-program-oncobell/hereditary-cancer/ ), under the supervision of Dr. Conxi Lázaro.

The overarching goal of the Hereditary Cancer group at IDIBELL is to gain insight into the molecular basis of hereditary cancer, to personalize risk assessment to patients and relatives, as well as to individualize management regarding follow-up, treatment and prophylactic measures.

Successful candidates will join dynamic, young and well-equipped research groups with strong interactions and multidisciplinary research. The group offers a stimulating research atmosphere and an environment in which collaboration and exchange of ideas and techniques is actively encouraged with a strong commitment to research which provides a lively and stimulating environment for young talents.

About the role

Advanced age, male gender and illness like diabetes and obesity are highly common in patients with most severe forms of COVID-19. But these risk factors do not let us to predict the evolution of all patients infected by SARS-CoV-2, and cannot explain why severe COVID-19 disease occurs in young healthy individuals.

In the past months several studies have shown that the severity of COVID-19 could be determined by host genetics. Unfortunately, we do not know the genetic susceptibility for severe COVID-19 in Spanish population. In studies performed to date, the clinical data collected under the emergency situation has not allowed to tackle COVID-19 correlating outcomes with host genetics.

Our hypothesis is that host genetics could explain why some young and healthy patients develop a life-threatening COVID-19 disease.

To study these hypothesis, a specific genetic test (NGS panel) will be developed, which will let us to identify several genetic alterations that could be related with highest susceptibility to severe SARS-CoV-2 infection and so, assessing the mutational landscape of genetic deleterious variants in our population.