A Post-Doctoral Scholarship is available to work on the project "Epigenetic regulation of
Leishmania gene expression" in the laboratory of molecular parasitology under the supervision
of Angela K. Cruz. This project is a partnership between Brazilian (Angela Cruz, FMRP/USP) and
UK laboratories (Pegine Walrad and Michael Plevin, Dept of Biology University of York), part of
the UK:Brazil Joint Centre Partnership in leishmaniasis (JCPiL), which involves 12 different
research groups from UK and Brazil. The postdoctoral fellow will study “non-coding RNAs
putative regulatory role” at the Brazilian laboratory.
Applicants must have a Ph.D. in Parasitology, Biochemistry, Genetics, Molecular Biology or
related fields. Preference will be given to highly motivated individuals with a proven
experience on molecular parasitology/microbiology. Applicants should have previous
experience with mouse handling and in vivo and in vitro infection procedures. Candidates
should be creative, personally motivated, have excellent oral and written communication skills
and a sense of teamwork. It is mandatory that applicants are fluent in English. The selected
candidate will receive a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from FAPESP (explicit details are at
www.fapesp.br/en/5427)
Summary: Leishmania gene expression control occurs mainly at the post-transcriptional level.
At the centre of the regulatory complexes are cis- and trans-regulatory elements, mainly
represented by mRNA elements (cis-elements) and RNA binding proteins (RBPs) which may
well include a thus-far unexplored content of non-coding transcripts (ncRNAs), recently
detected in these parasites. Cruz and co-workers have demonstrated that ncRNAs seems to be
a common feature of Leishmania transcriptomes and hundreds of putative ncRNAs were
identified as differentially expressed (DE) transcripts. The DE L. braziliensis ncRNAs and
interacting RBPs will be functionally investigated. The post-doctoral fellow will use state of the
art technologies for genome editing to generate knockout (KO) of DE ncRNAs in L. braziliensis
and to endogenously tag these ncRNAs to evaluate phenotypic changes and identify
interacting partners. The post-doctoral fellow from the Brazilian laboratory will be engaged in
the complementary studies to be developed in the UoY, under the guidance of Michael Plevin
and Pegine Walrad and should spend two 6-months periods in the UK.
How to apply: Interested individuals should contact Angela K. Cruz by email
(
[email protected] using “PostDoc_Leishmania_ncRNAs” as the subject of the email).
Documents requested: 1) a letter of intent stating the candidate motivations and why he/she
qualify for the position; 2) a short version of Curriculum Vitae containing a list of publications
and previous professional experiences; 3) Two letters of recommendation from previous
mentors/supervisors of the applicant should be sent to the same email address. Candidates
meeting the requirements will be contacted and interviewed (in-person or via Skype).