Postdoc in Immunometabolism Full-time

Two-year postdoc in Immunometabolism, funded by the Department of Defense Melanoma Research Program

Project Title: Leveraging Mitochondrial Diagnostics to Augment Anticancer Immunity in Melanoma

Despite accounting for less than 5% of all skin cancers, most skin-cancer related deaths are attributable to melanoma. An emergent ‘targeted’ approach to melanoma treatment involves the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (e.g., anti PD-1/PD-L1 therapy) that work by bolstering the body’s own antitumor immunity. By harnessing the intrinsic capabilities of the adaptive immune system to recognize self (i.e., ‘non-cancer’) from non-self (i.e., ‘cancer’), such strategies accelerate tumor removal and have the added benefit of potentially establishing long-term cancer immunity. Although, immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown remarkable efficacy in the clinic, a substantial portion of patients fail to respond. While this refractoriness (lack of efficacy, failure to respond) is likely multifactorial, a growing body of evidence is emerging which causally links immune cell failure to disruptions in the body’s major energy producing organelle – the mitochondrion. That said, the scientific community has not yet discovered what causes the immune cell mitochondria to fail. Therefore, this proposal plans to investigate differences in these energy-producing organelles in the context of anti-melanoma immunity.

Training Opportunities:

·         State-of-the art training in mitochondrial functional analysis.

·         Extensive training in human subject research specifically focused on bench to bedside translation.

·         Ample opportunities to participate in metabolism research across the Brody School of Medicine.

Responsibilities include management of all aspects of the funded project.  Duties include:  hypothesis development, literature review, collection of pilot data, report writing, and supervising of undergraduate research students and graduate research students, overseeing data collection procedures, supervising experimental procedures, review of data for quality control, supervision of data entry/data analysis, analysis of research hypothesis using descriptive and multivariate statistics, and the development of independent and collaborative presentations and publications. 

Scholars are expected to demonstrate compliance with established guidelines and regulatory standards for research including biosafety, responsible conduct of research and human subjects training.

Approximately 90% of the postdoctoral scholar’s time will be devoted to data collection, processing, analysis in accordance with the funded project.

Approximately 10% of the postdoctoral scholar’s time will be devoted to managing the day-to-day activity of undergraduate and graduate research students in the laboratory.

Tagged as: Life Sciences