Postdoctoral Research Scientist : Cambridge, United Kingdom

Job title: Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Location: Cambridge
Salary: Salary range is from £30,148 per annum to £33,497 per annum (depending on experience)

The Babraham Institute is a charity which is world renowned for its research in life sciences to enhance lives and improve wellbeing.

We are seeking a highly motivated and innovative Postdoctoral Research Scientist to investigate how the epigenetic landscape is established in oocytes and how epigenetic errors arise. This follows insights gained into the mechanisms of DNA methylation establishment in oocytes from our genome-wide methylation profiling (Smallwood et al. Nat. Genet. 2011) and demonstration of the contributions of transcription and chromatin factors in determining de novo DNA methylation (Chotalia et al. Genes Dev. 2009; Veselovska et al. Genome Biol. 2015; Nashun et al. Mol. Cell 2015; Stewart et al. Genes Dev. in press).

The project as a whole is supported by a Programme Grant from the Medical Research Council. Amongst the questions we are addressing are: the involvement of histone modifiers in determining DNA methylation patterns; properties of the de novo methylation complex; whether methylation errors can be attributed to defects in transcriptional regulation. These questions are being investigated through a combination of approaches, both in vivo and in vitro, including genome-wide mapping of DNA methylation and histone modifications, analysis of knock-outs of specific histone modifiers, and genetic modification of DNAmethyltransferases. We now wish to combine genetic approaches with higher-throughput screens based on RNAi knock-downs and our capability in single-cell methylation profiling (Smallwood et al. Nat. Methods 2014).

The successful applicant will have a PhD in genetics, developmental or molecular biology or a related discipline and should have experience in mammalian oocyte isolation, culture or microinjection, and familiarity with RNAi gene or targeting. Some experience in genome-wide DNA methylation profiling methods would be advantageous.