BACKGROUND

A posdoc position is immediately available in the Institute of Plant Genomics and Biotechnology and Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology at Texas A&M University. This will be one of three of four hires for our group. The general research area for our group is to employ the most up-to-date systems biology and metagenomics approaches to explore the plant, insect, and microbe interactions and to provide solutions for biofuels and bioproduct research.

Specifically, the lab will focus on four directions at the initial stage. First, we will study plant insect interaction with systems biology approaches to identify the important components for plant defense. Second, we will use systems biology, computational biology, and modern structural biology approaches to address the impendent needs in bioenergy from the perspectives of feedstock and cellulase enzyme improvement. Third, we will aim to develop the newest platforms for systems biology and bioinformatics applications including plant interactome study, next generation sequencing analysis, biological network building, proteomics data analysis, and statistical analysis of gene expression data. We expect that these platforms will be directly applicable to the other three areas of our research. Fourth, we will start the new direction of metagenomics and metaproteomics analysis of insect-microbe mutualism with respect to interaction with plant host. The study also has an application perspective in bioenergy and is related to the plant insect interaction research. Overall, we expect the four directions will lead to synergistic and cross-disciplinary understanding of fundamental scientific questions in plant, insect, and microbe interactions, and solutions for the emerging problems in bioenergy.

The group will have access to the world-leading state-of-the-art instruments and platforms to accomplish their mission. We have the Illumina Genome Analyzer as the next generation sequencing platform for genome analysis, the microarray system for transcriptome analysis, and LC-MS/MS system for proteome and metabolome analysis. In addition, we will have the basic computational infrastructure for bioinformatics and the HDX mass spectrometry platform for protein structure-function relationship study. The PI has broad background in functional genomics, bioinformatics, mass spectrometry, and plant insect interaction.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The position will be responsible for developing sequence analysis platform for next generation sequencing based on PI's previous work. He or she will also have opportunities in systems biology and proteomics platform development as well as continuing PI's effort in statistical software development for different gene expression techniques. We expect that our lab will be a superb place for a bioinformatician since the group will generate large amount of 'omics' data for platform development and will provide numerous collaborative opportunities.

REQUIREMENTS

He or she should be proficient in Perl programming and have experience with Java or C. We wish to invite somebody who has an enthusiasm for science and seeks a scientific career.

TERMS

The position can be extended as a university staff position. The initial appointment is one year, but could be extended for a much longer period of time.

LOCALE

Texas A&M University is one of the most prestigious public universities in US, and ranks 24th in total research expenditure among all US universities in 2007. The university provides substantial opportunities for a long-term career development due to the enormous resources available and the quite good reputation. The institute and the department have a friendly group of faculty and researchers that can stimulate creative thinking and productive collaborations. College station ranks among the most livable towns in US for its excellent public school system and very low living cost.

COMPENSATION: Depending on experience.

HOW TO APPLY

For detailed information, please contact Joshua S. Yuan at syuan[at]utk.edu or 510-919-7668.