Postdoctoral Scholar : San Francisco, CA, United States

The Shum lab at UCSF is recruiting talented and highly motivated individuals to joint our team as a Postdoctoral Research Scholar (http://shumlab.ucsf.edu). We are members of the UCSF Immunology Program, Biomedical Sciences (BMS) Graduate Program and the Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI). We developed a whole exome sequencing (WES) analysis pipeline to discover novel monogenic disorders of autoimmunity in families. Our primary focus is the study of fundamental mechanisms of immune tolerance, with a focus on autoimmune diseases affecting the lung. Based on the genetic variants discovered through our WES studies, we seek to dissect basic immunological mechanisms of disease through functional studies using engineered cell lines, patient cell lines and mutant mouse models generated with CRISPR/Cas9 technology. We are hiring for 2 positions:

1) Cell biologist: the postdoctoral fellow will work on a novel monogenic autoimmune disease called theCOPA syndrome that is due to a defect in the COPI vesicular trafficking pathway. The project involves understanding how defects in COPI-mediated trafficking to lead to ER stress, alterations in antigen processing and presentation and autoimmunity. Experience in confocal microscopy and in basic cell and molecular biology is required.

1) Immunologist: the postdoctoral fellow will work on mouse models of autoimmunity including a mutant mouse we have developed that express the same COPA mutations as patients and that was recently funded by an R01 grant from the NIH/NIAID. Experience in cellular immunology, multi-color flow cytometry, and molecular and cellular immunology is required.

Candidates must have a recent PhD in immunology, cell or molecular biology or related fields. Applicants must be able to design and conduct experiments, prepare and present research findings at meetings and write scientific manuscripts. The successful candidate will be a highly motivated individual with an outstanding publication record, excellent written and oral communication skills in English with the ability to work independently. Interested applicants should submit 1) a cover letter outlining research accomplishments 2) CV 3) a list of three references with contact information including mailing address, phone number and e-mail address….