Karolinska Institutet, Department of Medicine, Solna, Respiratory medicine division

The Department of Medicine, Solna, is one of the largest departments at Karolinska Institutet. The department consists of several divisions that are separated into different research groups. The core activities of the department are research, doctoral education and undergraduate education for medical and biomedical students. The research has three main profiles: allergy, cardiovascular medicine and inflammatory diseases.

Division
We seek a new postdoc who will work in genomics of sarcoidosis with Dr. Natalia Rivera, who is part of the Lung Laboratory Research led by Prof Johan Grunewald.
Sarcoidosis is a systematic inflammatory disease of unknown cause. The hallmarks of the disease is granuloma formation in the affected organ/tissue. Sarcoidosis can affect any organ/tissue in the human body; however, in ninety percent of the cases, the lungs and lymph nodes are affected.  At present, there is no biomarker to diagnose the disease or predict disease course once the onset begins. The molecular mechanisms underlying the disease are not well understood but evidences points out that immune-mediated responses are implicated.
The lung laboratory research focuses on respiratory diseases that affect the lung using various techniques and methodologies. In particular, Dr. Rivera’s research team focuses on the investigation of etiology and identification of molecular mechanisms underlying the pathobiology of sarcoidosis using genomic technologies and state-of-the-art methods combined with bioinformatics.

Duties
We seek an outstanding and innovative postdoc to join our team. We are data-rich, and need a postdoc to maximize our understanding of disease associated variants and to identify functional studies to explain their association.
Previous work by our group and others showed that sarcoidosis associated variants lie in promoters and enhancer regions and can be involved in transcriptional regulation of target genes implicated in the disease through epigenetic mechanisms. In this project, we are interested to investigate histone modification marks, specifically H3K4m1, H3K4m3, and H3K27ac in immune cells from peripheral blood (i.e., PMBCs) and lung (i.e, broncoalveolar lavage cells) of sarcoidosis patients.
The postdoctoral researcher will use cutting edge technologies such as chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) combined with next generation sequencing (ChIP-seq) to explore the effect of disease associated variants on the expression of genes that may have a key role in the development of sarcoidosis. This work will help us to explained the associated variants and generate new hypotheses as to which genes are implicated in the pathobiology of the disease. 
The applicant should be passionately committed to furthering knowledge of immune-mediated disorders in order to improve the lives of people. The successful applicant will join the Lung Lab Research team and conduct research on the genomics and functional studies of sarcoidosis.

Entry requirements
Applicants should have a PhD in immunology, biochemistry or genetics.
Applicants should have substantial knowledge and prior experience in the following aspects:

  • Conducting immunology and functional studies, preferably in human diseases;
  • Experience in mammalian cell culture of primary cells and cell lines; in-vitro and ex vivo; cell based assays;
  • Experience in quantification and analysis of Cytokine/chemokine and other factors by ELISA, ELISPOT, Cytometric Bead Array (CBA) and Proteome Profiler™ Antibody Arrays.
  • Experience in flow cytometry for determination of cell surface markers; intracellular flow cytometry and specific methods for detection of cytokines and inflammatory mediators.
  • Knowledge of complex trait genomics (i.e., genetics and epigenetics) is very important. Knowledge of lung diseases is helpful but can be taught if required.
  • Experience in mammalian and bacterial RNA and DNA extraction, as well as analysis by quantitative PCR and PCR.
  • Experience in fluorescence microscopy and Luminescence assays techniques; clinical diagnostic laboratory experience is a plus.
  • Applicants should be highly collegial and experienced in working effectively in “team science” contexts.
  • Successful postdoc should possess exceptional organizational skills and know how to multitask.

Excellent oral and written communication skills in English are required, along with ample experience with scientific writing.
Qualified to be employed as a postdoctor is one who has obtained a doctorate or has equivalent scientific competence.

Application process
An employment application must contain the following documents in English or Swedish:

  1. A complete curriculum vitae, including date of the thesis defence, title of the thesis, previous academic positions, academic title, current position, academic distinctions, and committee work
  2. A complete list of publications
  3. A summary of current work (no more than one page)

The application is to be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

Type of employment Temporary position
Contract type Full time
Number of positions 1
Full-time equivalent 100%
City Solna
County Stockholms län
Country Sweden
Reference number 2-3109/2019
Contact
  • Natalia Rivera, +46 700302763
Published 23.May.2019
Last application date 01.Jun.2019 11:59 PM CEST

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