Chemical genetics to explore gene expression and histone acetylation.
Medicine, Biochemistry and Pharmacology
Greetings! The Blind Lab has an open postdoc position to study how 2nd messenger signaling molecules generated in chromatin alter histone acetylation and gene expression.
We recently discovered a new gene regulatory mechanism in human glioblastoma cell lines. This new mechanism revolves around a kinase our lab studies, which is well known to generate inositide 2nd messenger signaling molecules. We discovered this kinase is recruited to thousands of transcriptional start sites, regulating gene expression in a kinase-dependent manner by altering histone acetylation.
Your project will be to follow up on this initial discovery by perturbing the established system in various ways, determining how those perturbations alter various measures of gene expression output. A unique tool available to you is a new chemical-genetic inhibitor of the kinase we developed, to ask how rapidly inhibiting kinase activity alters the kinetics of gene expression and histone acetylation in human cell lines. These kinetic analyses will establish which chromatin events the kinase mediates first, establishing causality. All major tools to address the questions have been developed by strong preliminary studies in our lab, which we are currently writing up.
The ideal candidate will need to have an interest in helping others in the lab and have some skills in mammalian cellular biochemistry, gene expression analysis, epigenetics/genomics and/or HDAC biology. Experience with or eagerness to learn chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), transcriptome (RNA-seq), global run-on (GRO-seq), Hi-C, RT-qPCR, qPCR and other gene expression analyses is ideal.
If you're doubting your fit, I encourage you to apply. I have many other projects in structural biology, genomics and drug design/screening you might be a great fit for!
Please send an email or cover letter expressing your interest, along with an updated CV (including manuscripts in prep, etc.), to Ray Blind. I will confirm receipt of your application.