Scholarship: Fully-funded
Degree: Ph.D
Nationality: International Students
Location: USA
Application deadlines: Open
Scholarship Description:
We are looking for an enthusiastic postdoctoral fellow to study the evolutionarily conserved cilia or flagella structures from protists to mammals and their protein trafficking process.
Their biomedical importance derives from their important role in ciliopathies, which cause numerous human diseases and have led to the use of various model organisms to study their assembly process. Trypanosoma brucei (T. brucei), a single-celled parasite that causes African sleeping sickness in humans and Nagano disease in cattle, is an emerging model organism to study flagellar biogenesis. As a model system, molecular and genetic manipulations such as inducible expression and RNAi allow rapid characterisation of protein functions in T. brucei.
My laboratory is dedicated to protein function, protein-protein interaction and structural determination of cellular machinery in unicellular parasites using molecular and cell biology and state-of-the-art cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) with allied techniques such as cryo-FIB-SEM. Using advanced imaging techniques, we can visualise the organisation of cellular structures and their coordination in 3D spatial organisation through a multi-scale imaging platform from microns to sub-nanometres to elucidate the molecular and structural functions that drive cell motility.
Our laboratory is fully equipped for all aspects of molecular and cell biology and has direct access to Titan Krios 3Gi, focused ion beam/scanning electron microscopy (cryo-FIB-SEM) Aquilos2 (https://www.structbio.pitt.edu/index.php/facilities/cryoem) and other instrumentation at the core facilities (http://www.researchimaging.pitt.edu/content/center-biologic-imaging).
Available Subjects:
- Molecular and cell biology or
- Microbiology or structural biology
Eligibility criteria:
- A PhD in a quantitative science (preferably molecular and cell biology or microbiology or structural biology) is required.
- Ability to design and carry out experiments
- Ability to analyse and interpret experimental results
- Ability to use a collaborative approach to formulate alternative and creative solutions to problems
- Present research projects at internal and external meetings or workshops
- Contribute to the writing of publications and reports
- Assist in the training of graduate students
- Communicate well with group leaders and members
Applications will be accepted until all positions are filled.
Application Procedure:
Interested students should send their CVs to stellasun@pitt.edu