Postdoc position available in the George Witman lab at UMass Medical School

An NIH-funded postdoctoral position currently is available in the Witman lab.  We study cilia and flagella (terms here used interchangeably) to understand how they are assembled and function and why defects in specific ciliary proteins cause human diseases.  Most of our research utilizes Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, which has major advantages for studies of flagella; we also study the mouse to confirm that our findings in Chlamydomonas are relevant to mammals.  Current projects include identification and characterization of novel flagellar proteins, mechanism of intraflagellar transport (IFT), flagellar assembly and length control, transition zone function, and flagellar signaling pathways.  We routinely use several state-of-the-art techniques, including super-resolution structured-illumination microscopy (SIM), total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, and quantitative mass spectrometry.  In collaboration with others, we use cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM); UMMS now has its own state-of-the-art cryo-EM Facility (https://www.umassmed.edu/research/cores/cryo-em-core-facility/), so a postdoc would have the opportunity to use this increasingly important technique as well.  We recently developed a protocol for efficient targeted disruption of genes in Chlamydomonas, which will greatly facilitate analysis of flagellar protein function and architecture (PMC7219734).

Please see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/george.witman.1/bibliography/40833437/public/?sort=date&direction=ascending for a complete list of our published work.

The ideal candidate will have experience working with Chlamydomonas, or with cilia in another organism.  Experience in most of the following would be expected:  molecular genetics, PCR, protein purification, western blotting, immunofluorescence microscopy, and bioinformatics.  Knowledge of Linux would be helpful.

Candidates should email a cover letter and CV with names of three references to George Witman at George.Witman@umassmed.edu.