Scholarship: Fully-funded
Degree: Ph.D
Nationality: International Students
Location: USA
Application deadlines: Open
Scholarship Description:
UTHSA is the largest medical centre in South Texas and one of four medical schools within the University of Texas System. Dr Chen is affiliated with both the UTHSA Cancer Research Center, one of the National Cancer Institute-designated National Cancer Centers in Texas, and the Barshop Institute, one of the NIH-funded Centers for Aging Research at UTHSA. Both research centres have excellent research facilities.
Dr Li-Zhen Chen joined UTHSA as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2016 and will become a tenure-track Associate Professor in 2021. Her lab has published in Molecular Cell (two papers), Nature Cell Biology, Aging Cell, Autophagy, and others. The group is dedicated to using animal models (mice and nematodes), NGS and other techniques to study the function and epigenetic mechanisms of enhancers in carcinogenesis, neurological diseases and human ageing.
In addition to helping postdocs to publish high impact articles, our research programme will help members of the dry/wet labs to develop solid expertise and experimental skills in molecular biology and multi-omics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenomics and metabolomics), including at the single cell level.
Available Subjects:
- to explore the role of signal-regulated enhancers in breast/prostate cancer/neuronal damage and ageing, and to understand how enhancers are regulated in response to crosstalk from different pathways such as sex hormones, inflammatory signals and metabolic signals;
- to study changes in epigenetic modifications and chromatin 3D levels of enhancers during developmental/pathological stimuli or hormonal/drug resistance acquisition;
- to study the regulatory mechanisms of protein phase separation within enhancer function;
- identify diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for cancer/neurological diseases/aging and develop drugs for preclinical studies and potential clinical applications.
Eligibility criteria:
- have a Ph.D. degree (or equivalent) in biochemistry/cell biology/cancer biology/bioinformatics or related biological sciences
- have a strong enthusiasm for learning and a solid theoretical and experimental background in molecular biology;
- have a strong background in one or more of the following areas: nematode or transgenic mouse models, patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models, breast/prostate cancer, neurological diseases, computational biology.
Application Procedure:
Interested candidates should send their application in PDF format to Dr Li-Jen Chen at [email protected].
