Postdoctoral Fellow: TF differentiation of hiPSCs

Salary per annum: c.£33,900

Contract Length: 2 years

Here at the world-famous and internationally respected Wellcome Sanger Institute, we have an exciting opportunity for a postdoctoral researcher to perform high throughput screening for transcription factor-driven differentiation in human pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) in order to create better in vitro differentiated cells that more faithfully mimic their in vivo counterparts.

About the Role 

You will have the opportunity to employ cutting-edge genome engineering technologies to design and perform combinatorial cDNA overexpression screens coupled to complex readouts such as flow cytometry and high throughput droplet-based single cell ‘omics (10x genomics) to characterise the resulting cells.

These technologies will enable the generation of pure and functional lineages of cells, with the aim of better modelling the genetic basis of disease, understanding cellular differentiation, and with high translational and therapeutic potential.

About You

We are looking for motivated candidates with a PhD in a relevant discipline with a background in molecular biology, mammalian cell culture and genome engineering.

Cell culture and molecular biology experience and an ability to work both independently and as part of a team are essential.

Essential Skills

• PhD degree in genetics, molecular biology, cell biology or similar subject
• Significant practical molecular or cell biology laboratory experience
• Proven track record of publications.
• Practical experience in mammalian cell culture
• Proven experience in genome engineering techniques e.g. CRISPR
• Practical experience and a good understanding of complex molecular biology techniques e.g. Golden gate, Gibson.assembly, recombineering, etc.
• Demonstrated ability to develop, test, implement and troubleshoot new assays and techniques.
• Knowledge of genome engineering techniques and stem cell biology (especially in vitro differentiation)
• Ability to lead scientific projects from inception to completion and inspire others.
• Self-motivated with an ability to work independently as well as part of a team.
• Capable of prioritising, organising and being responsible for workload, and working to agreed deadlines.
• Exceptional written and oral communication, organisational and presentation skills.
• Ability to collaborate, negotiate and influence others to drive projects forward.

Ideal Skills

• Practical experience with human or mouse stem cell culture.
• Experience of single cell ‘omics assays.
• Experience with in vitro differentiation of mouse or human stem cells.
• Experience in use of sequence manipulation software (e.g. Vector NTI, SnapGene, etc.)
• Experience of computational analysis of large datasets including scripting (e.g. Perl, Python, etc.).

Other information

You will work in the Cellular and Gene Editing Research Group led by Dr Andrew Bassett, and in close collaboration with the Teichmann, Parts, Bayraktar and Vento groups. The Wellcome Sanger Institute is at the forefront of single-cell technologies with projects such as the human cell atlas (https://www.humancellatlas.org/ ) aiming to identify and create reference maps of every cell type in the human body. These datasets will be critical in identifying candidate factors to drive differentiation of particular lineages as well as analysing the effectiveness of these in vitro engineered cells. They will also take advantage of extensive experience in genome engineering of hiPSCs (>300 lines have been made), in vitro differentiation, and access to hundreds of hiPSC lines from the HipSci initiative (https://www.hipsci.org/ ).