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Department of Medicine

Opportunities

Post-Doctoral Fellowship Position Currently Available

The laboratory seeks a post-doctoral fellow to participate in our research program on the role of regulatory T cells in promoting resolution of acute lung injury. We are looking for an enthusiastic post-doctoral fellow to join our lab. The successful candidate will gain experience in a number of immunologic, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses. Importantly, these projects will provide the necessary training and expertise that will translate into future research projects for ambitious and motivated scientists with aspirations for their own independent research careers.

In addition to research, the post-doctoral fellow will be actively involved with writing scientific papers and presenting talks at scientific meetings. The expectation will be that this person develops an area of expertise in aspects of host defense and immune responses in the lungs. The post-doctoral fellow will have the potential to be supported by a T32 Training Grant.

 

Focus work will include studying the role of glucocorticoid (GC) signaling during experimental acute lung injury.

  • To determine the function of Treg’s glucocorticoid receptor (GR) signaling and the direct and indirect impact of GCs on Treg-promoted resolution. We hypothesize that the administration of exogenous GC affects Treg responses during resolution. Additionally, we will test the hypothesis that GR-deficient Tregs have decreased immunomodulatory and tissue reparative effects during ALI.
  • To address the effects of host genetic variations on the functions of Tregs and the effects of GCs. Host genetic variation likely impacts on the immunologic response during ARDS and are determinants of outcomes. The Collaborative Cross (CC) is a multi-parental genetic reference population generated using eight founder mouse strains. These genetically diverse CC strains demonstrate phenotypic variability useful for genetic mapping disease trait-associated quantitative trait loci (QTL). Variation in Treg phenotypes in the CC has been reported. We propose leveraging the CC’s genetic diversity to test the hypotheses that
    • 1) host genetic variation impacts the response to exogenous GC administration after inducing ALI and 2) variation in the Treg number or effector phenotypes across the CC associates with different rates of resolution of ALI and identifies genetic loci that define genes of host variation.

We predict that the proposed studies will identify genetic loci that modulate Treg responses critical in resolving ALI and will identify the role of GCs in promoting resolution. Identifying and elucidating these mechanisms of GC action and GR function may identify possible therapeutic approaches to lessen collateral tissue damage without negatively altering the response to injury.

 

Educational Requirements:
Applicants should possess a PhD in Immunology, Genetics, Molecular Biology, or a related field.

Qualifications and Experience:
Experience with flow cytometry, functional genomic experiments such as ChIP-Seq, RNA-seq or ATAC-seq desired. Candidates should also have strong communication and analytical skills.

 

If interested, please click the UNC posting link above or contact jason_mock@med.unc.edu