Postdoc Position in Bioinformatics or Functional Genomics

[Ema Shollenberger]

The Faculty of Medicine promotes scientific research of a high standard and is responsible for providing research-based undergraduate and postgraduate education in medicine, dentistry, psychology and logopedics, as well as for the English-language Master's Programme in Translational Medicine. In addition to its teaching and research activities, the Faculty serves as a significant expert organisation in the healthcare sector and contributes to the discourse on ethics in the field. In terms of research, the Faculty aims for a place among the best medical faculties in the world, while consolidating and strengthening its status as a top-level institution of medical education.

Together with the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) and the Helsinki Institute of Life Sciences (HiLIFE), the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, constitutes the Academic Medical Center Helsinki (AMCH). This medical center has been very successful in international comparisons, ranking among the top 10 medical campuses in Europe and among the top 50 globally.

is available in the laboratory headed by Prof. Jussi Taipale and Dr. Norman Zielke at the Finnish Center of Excellence in Tumor Genetics Research (CoETG) at the University of Helsinki (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/finnish-center-of-excellence-i…).

Our laboratory employs diverse systems-biology approaches to understand how tissue-specific transcription factors collaborate with oncogenic signals to drive cell proliferation. Current lines of work include computational and experimental identification of TF binding sites, and combination of the generated datasets for identification of regulatory elements that control cell growth during normal development or in cancer. The identified regulatory elements are validated using CRISPR/CAS9-mediated genome editing in cultured cells and model organisms.

K. Palin et al., Contribution of allelic imbalance to colorectal cancer. Nat. Commun. 9, 3664 (2018).

F. Zhu et al., The interaction landscape between transcription factors and the nucleosome. Nature (2018).

B. Wei et al., A protein activity assay to measure global transcription factor activity reveals determinants of chromatin accessibility. Nat. Biotechnol. (2018).

Y. Yin et al., Impact of cytosine methylation on DNA binding specificities of human transcription factors. Science. 356 (2017).

K. Dave et al., Mice deficient of Myc super-enhancer region reveal differential control mechanism between normal and pathological growth. Elife. 6 (2017),

K. Sur et al., Mice lacking a Myc enhancer that includes human SNP rs6983267 are resistant to intestinal tumors. Science. 338, 1360-1363 (2012).

N. Zielke et al., Control of Drosophila endocycles by E2F and <acronym title="CDT2">CRL4</acronym>. Nature. 480, 123-127 (2011).

Requirements Postdoc position

The applicant should have a strong background in molecular biology, genetics, biotechnology and/or computer science or mathematics and be interested in working in an interdisciplinary environment that combines experimental and in silico approaches. The candidate should have a recent PhD degree (or be close to completion of their degree) in a relevant subject area and a substantial track record of productivity.

Desired skills in Bioinformatics

The candidate should have solid programming skills (e.g. R, C, Python), knowledge of mathematical network modelling approaches, and ability to work independently in a multi-disciplinary team (i.e. ability to work and communicate with biologists is essential).

Desired skills in Functional Genomics

Experience in at least one of the listed areas is required: CRISPR/CAS9-mediated genome editing, mammalian cell culture with detailed knowledge on lentiviral transfection, Drosophila genetics, ChIP-Seq and related methods, preparation of libraries for next-generation sequencing approaches, data analysis.

Your application

For instructions on how to apply, please refer to: http://bit.ly/2DIgI0T