POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLAR POSITION – University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)

The X. William Yang Laboratory at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (http://yanglab.npih.ucla.edu) is seeking several postdoctoral candidates. The Yang lab is integrating mouse genetics and systems biology to study pathogenesis and therapeutics of neurodegenerative disorders including Huntington’s disease (HD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and developing novel BRAIN Initiative technologies to map brainwide single-neuron morphology.

The postdocs will pursue research in one or several of the following areas:

1. The development and characterization of novel mouse genetic models, including patient-derived genetic modifiers, of HD (e.g. Gu et al. Neuron, 2022) and AD (Lee et al. Neuron, 2018);
2. Comprehensive omics profiling (transcriptomics, proteomics, single-nucleus RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, methylomics) of novel mouse models of HD and AD with integrative bioinformatics analysis (Langfelder et al., Nature Neurosci., 2016; Shirasaki et al. Neuron, 2012);
3. Creating novel assays and performing CRISPR or small molecule screening to identify novel targets or molecules that can alter disease-relevant gene function;
4. Employing our novel genetic sparse labeling MORF mice (Veldman et al. Neuron, 2020) to develop novel 3D imaging and computational pipeline for single-neuron morphological profiling in healthy and diseased brains (e.g. Veldman et al. Neuron, 2020; Muñoz-Castañeda et al. Nature, 2021);
5. Developing and characterizing next-generation MORF mice to study single-neurons subcellular structures (e.g. synapses, organelles) and to enable genetic perturbations.

The candidates should have a PhD in neuroscience, molecular biology, genetics, bioengineering, or bioinformatics/data science. Strong candidates should show passion in studying brain disease or brain cell biology (although prior experience in this area is not required); creativity, independence, and willingness to collaborate with others. Preferred candidates should have a strong background in: (i). mouse or fly genetics; (ii). molecular biology (e.g. molecular cloning; transcriptome and epigenome profiling; high-throughput screening); (iii). neuroscience (e.g. neurodegenerative diseases or neuroanatomy); (vi). statistics and computer programming (e.g. for bioimage analyses).

The Yang lab is part of Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics in the Semel Institute and Brain Research Institute at UCLA, which has one of the largest and highly collaborative neuroscience community. The trainee can also benefit from interactions with our collaborators in HD and AD research communities worldwide and with Brain Initiative Cell Census Network (biccn.org).

Interested candidates should submit a statement on their research experience and goals, and Curriculum Vitae to Dr. X. William Yang (xwyang@mednet.ucla.edu).