Postdoctoral Position on the Genomics of Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Resistance

Postdoctoral Position on the Genomics of Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Resistance, Boston Children’s Hospital, Division of Infectious Diseases (a Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital), Boston, MA

Job description

Multiple postdoctoral (PD) positions are available in the van Opijnen lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital, focused on the genomics of infectious diseases (IDs) and antimicrobial resistance. By developing and exploiting state of the art high-throughput robotics, sequencing based approaches, microfluidics, and large-scale genetic screening tools, combined with the development and implementation of computational and bioinformatic approaches, we map out multidimensional profiles to understand a pathogen and the phenotypes it generates as a complete system, and ideally, in interaction with its host.Approaches explored are thereby geared towards determining the relationship between a pathogen’s genotype and its (potential) phenotype(s). Such phenotypes can include a simple relationship between the presence of a certain mutation, gene and/or pathway and a pathogen’s ability to survive/grow in a certain environment, to highly complex relationships between all the individual genetic components in the genome and their combined ability to cause disease, develop drug resistance and/or escape host detection.

The PD will have an appointment as a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and will be an integral part of a diverse lab, department and environment that aims to push the envelope on infectious disease research and how IDs are diagnosed and treated. The PD will work on an NIH funded program and in close collaboration with all lab members, and lead the development and implementation of new approaches that include single cell, spatial and/or high throughput screening tools. These tools have as a goal to identify and characterize antibiotic resistant, tolerant and hetero-resistant strains, and target such strains by the screening for drug and/or immune interacting nanobodies, and computationally mined and AI/ML designed peptides and compounds.

Qualifications and Requirements:

• Inherent passion for designing new tools and approaches to overcome some of the world’s most pressing infectious disease challenges.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team in a highly collaborative research environment.
• A PhD in microbiology, immunology, genomics or a related discipline.
• Experience in microbial genomics, host pathogen interactions and/or immunology.
• Experience in single cell genomics approaches including pooled/sc CRISPRi, Tn-Seq, RNA-Seq, WGS.
• Experience in animal handling and infection experiments.
• Proficiency in bioinformatics tools such as bowtie, STAR, BWA, CMfinder, edgeR, BreSeq, Salmon.
• Proven track record of peer-reviewed scientific publications.
• Excellent English communication skills both in written and oral form.

Role:

• Work independently and as part of a team to develop and implement new (high-throughput) experimental tools.
• Collaborate and communicate openly with lab members.
• Remain up-to-date with relevant scientific progress in the field and related existing and new approaches.
• Present and discuss research openly and clearly to lab members and towards the larger community.
• Mentor and manage lab members.
• Other related tasks as required.

How to apply

When applying include a cover letter describing your professional interests and ambitions, a curriculum vitae and contact information for at least two references. Applications can be sent to [email protected]

Boston Children’s Hospital is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions or any other characteristic protected by law.