Research assistant: Mouse colony management and metabolic analyses

The Institute

The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) is an international biomedical research institute of excellence, based in Barcelona, Spain, with more than 400 scientists from 44 countries. The CRG is composed by an interdisciplinary, motivated and creative scientific team which is supported both by a flexible and efficient administration and by high-end and innovative technologies.

In April 2021, the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) received the renewal of the 'HR Excellence in Research ' Award from the European Commission. This is a recognition of the Institute's commitment to developing an HR Strategy for Researchers, designed to bring the practices and procedures in line with the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers (Charter and Code).

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The role

Pancreatic islets play a key role in maintaining glucose homeostasis by secreting insulin. Dysfunction and loss of insulin-producing beta cells leads to diabetes, a disease increasing worldwide that represents a major health challenge. While extensive research has started to uncover the transcriptional networks that control differentiation and function of beta cells, and showed that diabetes genetic risk variants often alter gene expression regulation, little is known about the roles of post-transcriptional mechanisms such alternative splicing in islet biology and diabetes.

We are looking for a motivated and experienced research assistant to work on a research line of the lab funded by ERC, La Caixa and EFSD that aims at understanding the role of a recently discovered alternative splicing program in islet function, glucose metabolism and diabetes. The successful candidate will manage colonies of existing mouse KO models and contribute to generate new ones. Moreover, the candidate will help with different mouse in vivo studies related to metabolism, physiology and pancreas biology.

About the lab

The Irimia lab is an international and multi-disciplinary team focused on elucidating the role of alternative splicing in vertebrate development and evolution. Much of our work focuses on microexons in the nervous system and in endocrine pancreas, a splicing program that we have originally discovered and to which we have made key contributions. In our lab, we combine computational approaches (comparative bulk and single-cell transcriptomics and functional genomics) with experiments using in vitro and in vivo systems (mouse, zebrafish, and fruitfly). In addition, this project will be developed in close collaboration with two senior groups at CRG: the Ferrer lab (Regulatory genomics and diabetes) and the Valcárcel lab (Regulation of alternative pre-RNA splicing during development and disease), which will bring complementary expertise.