Postdoctoral Research Scientist

The laboratory of Dr. Michio Hirano, in the H. Houston Merritt Neuromuscular Research Center at Columbia University, is seeking a talented and highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Scientist. The successful candidate will perform cell culture studies to assess candidate pharmacological therapies for a rare neuromuscular genetic disorder due to a HSPB8 pathogenic variant. 

In addition, the candidate will be responsible for the following: 

•    Culture primary human fibroblasts

• -       Continue on-going medium throughput drug screening of cultured human fibroblasts from patients with HSPB8 pathogenic variants.

• -       Immunocytochemistry of patients’ and control fibroblasts

• -       Immunoblot quantification of autophagic markers

• -       Work closely to prepare data for future drug efficacy assessment/review. 

• -       Potential single molecule characterization of HSPB8 wild-type vs. mutant proteins

The Merritt Neuromuscular Research Center is comprised of a diverse and collaborative group of scientists and neurologists, with an invaluable connection between the laboratory and clinic.  Our research into the underlying molecular pathomechanisms of mitochondrial neurogastrointestinal encephalomyopathy (MNGIE) and thymidine kinase 2 deficiency (TK2d) has directly has led to our development of clinical trials for these devastating diseases.  The group’s pre-clinical studies have led to pioneering the use of nucleoside supplementation to treat TK2d.