Postdoctoral Researcher in experimental and translational studies on the small vessel disease CADASIL and neurodegeneration Full-time

Postdoctoral Researcher in Experimental and Translational Studies on the Small Vessel Disease CADASIL and Neurodegeneration

A postdoctoral fellowship is available in the lab of Helena Karlström at the Division of Neurogeriatrics, Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Karolinska Institutet. The Karlström lab is located in BioClinicum, Solna campus where all of the experiments will be conducted.

The Karlström laboratory is aimed at elucidating mechanisms of the vascular function of small vessel disease/CADASIL and the relationship of impaired vascular function and neurodegeneration with the goal of identifying new molecular targets for diagnosis and treatment of small vessel diseases, with emphasis on CADASIL. Research projects in the Karlström lab are supported by several funding bodies such as e.g., The European Joint program-Rare diseases/Swedish Research Council, The Dutch Brain Foundation, and Private donations within and outside Sweden.

Your Mission

The postdoctoral fellow will perform studies on both mouse models and human tissue samples to investigate the spatiotemporal vascular/perivascular pathology in the monogenic cerebral small vessel disease Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) and the link to neurodegeneration. The methods that will be used is surgical procedures in mouse models, immunostaining of brain and microvasculature, in combination with advanced confocal microscopy and 3D analysis using tissue clearing and Light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) imaging combined with bioinformatic tools and biostatistics.

The project also involves molecular and cell biology methods to study mechanism of action using for instance qPCR, western blotting, transcriptomics (sc/sn/bulk RNA seq) and proteomics (mass-spectometry techniques), ELISA and Olink analysis. The successful candidate will be part of a highly interactive multinational and multidisciplinary team covering expertise in vascular biology and neurodegenerative diseases as well as molecular and cell biology.

The position is a full time temporary employment for two years with the possibility of extension.

Your Profile

We are seeking an ambitious postdoctoral fellow with great team-working and communication skills, who has a strong background in vascular biology (preferably small vessel diseases/CADASIL), and neurodegenerative diseases. The successful applicant should have extensive experience and practical skills from research animal work, immunohistochemistry, advanced microscopy imaging using confocal and LSFM in combination with Imaris software and regular protein and RNA analysis methods such as scRNA/snRNA seq, western blot, qPCR, ELISA, Olink and cell-and molecular biology techniques.

Furthermore, the applicant should have good knowledge in Bioinformatic tools such as in R coding language, and data processing using different package such as the Seurat package, ClusterProfiler, Monocle3. Good ability to speak and write English is a requirement. A strong scientific drive is expected, documented with a publication record.

To be eligible for employment as a postdoctoral researcher, a PhD or a foreign degree deemed to be equivalent to a Swedish PhD is required. This eligibility requirement must be fulfilled at the latest at the time of the employment decision. Completion of your doctoral degree within the last three years is considered an advantage. If there are special reasons, your degree may have been completed earlier.

What Do We Offer?

A creative and inspiring environment with wide-ranging expertise and interests. Karolinska Institutet is one of the world's leading medical universities. At Karolinska Institutet, we conduct successful medical research and hold the largest range of medical education in Sweden. At KI, you get to meet researchers working with a wide range of specialisms and methods, giving you ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with the various scientific fields within medicine and health. It is the crossover collaborations, which have pushed KI to where it is today, at the forefront of global research. Several of the people you meet in healthcare are educated at KI. A close relationship with the health care providers is important for creating groundbreaking top quality education and research. Karolinska Institutet is also a state university, which entitles you to several benefits through our collective agreement.

Location: BioClinicum, Karolinska Institutet, Solna Campus

Application

An employment application must contain the following documents in English or Swedish:

• PhD certificate
• A complete resumé, including date of the thesis defence, title of the thesis, previous academic positions, academic title, current position, academic distinctions, and committee work
• A complete list of publications
• A summary of current work (no more than one page)

The application is to be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.