瑞典卡罗琳斯卡学院细胞外囊泡开发博士后职位

瑞典卡罗琳斯卡学院细胞外囊泡开发博士后职位

Postdoc In Extracellular Vesicles For Therapeutic Delivery

Karolinska Institute Stockholm

Description

Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research?

The Department of Laboratory of Medicine, located in Flemingsberg, is one of the Karolinska Institutet's largest departments with 7 research divisions including Biomolecular and Cellular Medicine (BCM), where the project will be carried out.

BCM provides the facilities needed for cell- and molecular biology research and the possibility to perform research in vivo.

We are seeking a highly motivated person to join the group of Associate Professor Samir El-Andaloussi as a Postdoctoral Researcher to work on the development of bioengineered extracellular vesicles (EVs).

Your mission

Our research efforts in the EL Andaloussi´s lab focus on one of the greatest challenges facing modern therapeutics; delivery of macromolecules to target cells in vivo. Despite the unprecedented knowledge of diseases and their mechanisms due to advances in biomedical sciences; many promising therapeutic approaches are still clinically unavailable. This is simply because there is no efficient means of delivering these therapeutics to the right organ with the right dose. Such therapeutics include proteins for replacement therapy as well as nucleic acids for gene therapy of diseases including muscular dystrophies and neurodegenerative disorders.

We develop innovative drug delivery technologies that are able to carry protein and/or gene therapies to the target tissues safely and efficiently. We have developed a promising technology based on reprogramming exosomes, which are vesicles that are naturally used by cells to communicate, to carry therapeutic proteins and nucleic acids. We engineer exosomes with enhanced delivery and targeting capacities and screen our wide array of exosome designs in disease-relevant cellular and animal models. To further enhance the targeted delivery this project aims to develop targeted functional delivery of macromolecules for both in vitro and in vivo use.

Most of the research will be conducted utilizing cell lines and animal models. The first part of the work will involve developing a novel targeting platform for functional uptake in specific cell populations. Here molecular cloning to generate novel constructs will be essential and later screening of the novel constructs in relevant reporter cell lines (the reporter cell lines are already established in the lab). Successful candidate constructs will later be developed to target disease relevant targets firstly in vitro and later in vivo. The work will be highly innovative and require extensive knowledge regarding molecular biology techniques, cell culture and the process of making stable cells via lentivirus transduction or transposon transfections.

Your profile

Qualified to be employed as a postdoctor is one who has obtained a doctorate or has equivalent scientific competence. Applicants who have not completed a doctorate at the end of the application period may also apply, provided that all requirements for a completed degree are met before the (intended) date of employment. This must be substantiated by the applicant's main supervisor, director or equivalent.

The applicant should have a solid background in basic biology and/or drug delivery. The position requires practical lab experience in the following areas; foremost experience with molecular cloning and extensive knowledge regarding cell culture work including generation of stable cell clones for protein expression. Secondly experience with flow cytometric analysis of protein expression and experience with PCR related techniques. The ideal candidate would furthermore have experience within the EV or virus field and previous work within stem cell biology, but this is not required.

In addition, excellent proficiency in both spoken and written English is important. We are looking for an energetic and passionate person who fits in, and actively contributes to our team.