Karolinska Institutet

The Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society (NVS) conducts world leading research in aging, dementia, epidemiology and care sciences. This research extends from basic molecular and cell levels to clinical research and societal studies. NVS educates almost a third of KI students at basic and advanced levels. The Department has approximately 540 employees and a revenue 2023 of 530 million SEK. It comprises seven divisions, located at Campus Flemingsberg and Campus Solna.

The division and research group
The research at the division of Neurogeriatrics is focused on neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimers disease and is strongly oriented towards translating findings from basic research into clinical practice.
We are currently five PhD students, two technicians, six post docs, two assistant professors, and two professors. We have developed the first biomimetic spinning method for production of artificial spider silk fibers. Now we aim to spin artificial silk fibers that match the native silk in terms of mechanical properties in a project that is funded by an ERC consolidator grant. To reach this goal we will use state-of -the art sequencing methods and protein engineering. We have recently published several articles in high ranked journals (Andersson et al. Nat Chem Biol. 2017; Kronqvist et al. Nat Commun. 2017; Rising&Johansson. Nat Chem Biol. 2015).
The research group is located at Karolinska Institutet, campus Flemingsberg, and at SLU in Uppsala.
We now want to expand the group with a 1 year postdoc position with possibility of extension.

The project and duties
Spiders spin the toughest fiber known to man, but the understanding of the silk gland, silk genetics and composition of the silk fiber is poorly understood. In this project we will sequence the genome of a Swedish spider and use ScRNAseq to increase our understanding of function of the silk glands.
The successful candidate is expected to have a large interest in bioinformatics and previous analysis of genomes and/or transcriptomes is required. We will use single cell sequencing (10x chromium) in order to increase our understanding of the proteins involved in the spider silk spinning process and also do de novo assembly of the genome from a Swedish spider (PacBio and 10x). The applicant is expected to independently analyze, assemble and annotate sequence information that is generated at sequencing platforms at SciLife lab. Collection of spiders and isolation of DNA and RNA may be part of the duties. The applicant is also expected to supervise doctorial students and master students in the lab. We work in collaboration with other groups and very interdisciplinary, which demands the applicant to be independent, creative, have a positive attitude and be collaborative. The applicant is expected to work at both KI campuses as well as in Uppsala.

Entry requirements
A person is eligible for a position as postdoctoral research fellow if he or she has obtained a PhD no more than seven years before the last date of employment as postdoc. The applicant should have a doctoral degree in medicine, cell biology, biomedicine, computer science or similar topic. The successful candidate is expected to have a strong drive to pursue research, be organized and structured and have an ambitious and innovative attitude. The project is cross-disciplinary and pursued in collaboration with several research groups, and good collaborative skills are necessary. Previous documented experience of bioinformatic analyses of genomes and/or transcriptomes and ability to work efficiently in a Linux command-line are required. Good knowledge of R is a merit. Emphasis will be put on personal skills in the evaluation process. Very good ability to speak and write English is a requirement.

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 Huddinge
County Stockholms län
Country Sweden
Reference number 2-2316/2019
Contact
  • Anna Rising, Senior Researcher, +46 (0) 70 410 69 97, anna.rising@ki.se
  • Janne Johansson, Professor, +46 (0) 70 345 70 48, janne.johansson@ki.se
  • Ulla Cronfalk-Hernlund, Head of administration, 08- 524 868 18, ulla.cronfalk-hernlund@ki.se
  • Maria Staiger, HR officer, 08-524 837 79, maria.staiger@ki.se
Union representative
  • Henry Wölling, SEKO, henry.wolling@ki.se
  • Carina Eklund, OFR, 08-585 826 65, carina.eklund@ki.se
  • Biborka Bereczky Veress, SACO, 46 70-173 85 75
Published 11.Apr.2019
Last application date 22.May.2019 11:59 PM CEST

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