BACKGROUND

Several postdoctoral positions are available in Dr. Zhongming Zhao's Bioinformatics and Systems Medicine Laboratory (BSML,www.uth.edu/bioinfo/), now moved to School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science at Houston (UTHealth) from Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The successful candidate is expected to join an established bioinformatics team. The ongoing projects in BSML focus on precision medicine, functional roles of genetic variants in complex disease, next-generation sequencing data analyses, and regulatory networks. Integrative genomics and systems biology approaches are often applied. Funding is available to support this position for up to three years and future promotion is possible. The candidate will have the opportunity to access many high throughput datasets and interact with investigators across UTHealth and Texas Medical Center. The lab has an excellent post-doctoral training track record (e.g. 13 former postdocs are currently faculty members, two received Young Investigator Awards from national foundations, and three were finalists for the Vanderbilt Postdoc of the Year Award). Recent publications:

Jia P, Jin H, Meador CB, Xia J, Ohashi K, Liu L, Pirazzoli V, Dahlman KB, Politi K, Michor F, Zhao Z, Pao W (2013) Next-generation sequencing of paired tyrosine kinase inhibitor-sensitive and -resistant EGFR mutant lung cancer cell lines identifies spectrum of DNA changes associated with drug resistance. Genome Research 23:1434-1445

Cheng F, Jia P, Wang Q, Lin CC, Li WH, Zhao Z (2014) Studying tumorigenesis through network evolution and somatic mutational perturbations in the cancer interactome. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 31(8):2156-2169

Jia P, Wang Q, Chen Q, Hutchinson K, Pao W, Zhao Z (2014) MSEA: detection and quantification of mutation hotspots through mutation set enrichment analysis. Genome Biology 15:489

Zhao Z, Xu J, Chen J, Kim S, Reimers M, Bacanu SA, Yu H, Liu C, Sun J, Wang Q, Jia P, Xu F, Zhang Y, Kendler KS, Peng Z, Chen X (2015) Transcriptome sequencing and genome-wide association analyses reveal lysosomal function and actin cytoskeleton remodeling in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Molecular Psychiatry, 20(5):563-72

Shen Q, Cheng F, Song H, Lu W, Zhao Z, Zhang J (2017) Proteome-scale investigation of protein allosteric regulation perturbed by somatic mutations in 7,000 cancer genomes. American Journal of Human Genetics, 100(1):5-20

The BSML lab is part of the new Center for Precision Health (CPH), a joint enterprise by the School of Biomedical Informatics and School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science at Houston. The center is established in UTHealth in response to the emerging need of precision health and President Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative. The center focuses on precision cancer medicine, systems medicine, pharmacogenomics, and translational bioinformatics. UTHealth is in the world-renowned Texas Medical Center (TMC) located in cosmopolitan Houston, Texas, the fourth largest city in the United States. SBMI currently offers Master's and Ph.D. Degrees, along with a certificate program in biomedical and health informatics.

REQUIREMENTS

The qualified candidates should be highly motivated in research and have a Ph.D. in bioinformatics, quantitative science, computational biology, molecular biology, pharmacology, or related field upon the job start date. The successful candidate should have some experience in analyzing high-throughput genomic data and proven skills in at least one programming language (e.g., Perl, R, Java, or C/C++). Good understanding of genetics or molecular biology and familiarity with biostatistics are plus. For more information about our research, please visit the web site http://www.uth.edu/bioinfo/.

PREFERENCES

Experience in NGS data analysis and/or complex disease genetics

TERMS

Up to three years, and with potential to get promotion to upper level positions.

LOCALE

Houston, Texas, USA

COMPENSATION

Salary are commensurate with the NIH pay level, and can be higher with strong research experience. Promotion to other positions is available too. All postdocs are provided with the benefits according to the university standard (medical and dental insurance, retirement, etc.).

HOW TO APPLY

Please contact zhongming.zhao[at]uth.tmc.edu

DEADLINE

Available until being filled.