Inner ear and retina cell biology Post-Doctoral Positions
Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Translational Research
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Three postdoctoral positions are available immediately in the laboratory of Dr. Zubair Ahmed in the departments of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Ophthalmology.
Our mission: Usher syndrome (USH) is the leading cause of inherited deaf-blindness. Type 1 is the most severe, with affected children born profoundly deaf with an impaired vestibular system, resulting in late gross motor milestones and poor balance. These children also have retinitis pigmentosa with symptoms that develop as early as their toddler years, with night blindness followed by increasingly narrow tunnel vision progressing to total blindness during adulthood. To date, no therapy is available to preserve vision in USH subjects. We use a broad range of techniques from human genetics, viral-mediated gene delivery, neurophysiological and molecular studies in vivo and in vitro, using tissue culture, mouse models, and zebrafish. Our ultimate goal is to develop new treatments for genetic and acquired hearing and vision loss.
Job description: Full-time postdoctoral position leading projects related to the translational approaches to reduce/ improve hearing and vision loss in novel USH transgenic mouse models; characterization of inner ear and retina function, morphology and Usher syndrome proteins in mouse and zebrafish models. These projects will require knowledge/additional training in the inner ear and/or retina cell biology, animal models, high resolution imaging, physiological techniques (e.g. ABR, DPOAE, ERG), and gene delivery amongst other techniques.
Ideal candidates are highly motivated graduates of a PhD program in cellular or molecular biology, with some experience in working with animal models, ideally characterizing hearing or vision disorders. Experience in inner ear or retina biology, functional analysis, and a strong publication record are helpful.
Environment: The laboratory is part of the departments of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery and Ophthalmology, and we are affiliated also with the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The lab is housed in a newly build large open space at the University of Maryland – HSFIII, in a highly collaborative fashion. The University has state of the art confocal, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, proteomics, flow cytometry and immunology, animal and sequencing facilities. We have the skills and expertise to perform in-depth functional analyses of vision, auditory, and vestibular dysfunction in mouse and zebrafish. The team consists of undergraduates, graduate students, post docs, residents and surgeons working together on basic science and translational studies.
Benefits: Stipend follows the NIH recommended guidelines and full health benefits. Standardized leave – 10 days annual leave, 15 days sick leave, 3 days personal leave and ~15 days holiday leave (determined annually by the university). Postdocs will ideally participate and present in one annual meeting a year, as determined by the PI, contingent on productivity. The postdoctoral appointments are renewed on an annual basis contingent on performance and available funding.
Contact: For further details, please email ZMAhmed@som.umaryland.edu and include a brief (1 page) description of your background, current research and career goals, as well as your curriculum vitae and names of three references.
To apply for this job email your details to ZMAhmed@som.umaryland.edu
Kirupa Suthakar, PhD - Dr Kirupa Suthakar is a postdoctoral fellow at NIH/NIDCD, having formerly trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School and doctoral student at Garvan Institute of Medical Research/UNSW Australia. Kirupa's interest in the mind and particular fascination by how we are able to perceive the world around us led her to pursue a research career in auditory neuroscience. To date, Kirupa's research has broadly focused on neurons within the auditory efferent circuit, which allow the brain to modulate incoming sound signals at the ear. Kirupa is active member of the spARO community, serving as the Chair Elect for 2021.
Charles C. Della Santina, PhD MD is a Professor of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he directs the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Implant Center and the Johns Hopkins Vestibular NeuroEngineering Laboratory.
Andrew Griffith received his MD and PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University in 1992. He completed his general surgery internship and a residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Michigan in 1998. He also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Department of Human Genetics as part of his training at the University of Michigan. In 1998, he joined the Division of Intramural Research (DIR) in the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). He served as a senior investigator, the chief of the Molecular Biology and Genetics Section, the chief of the Otolaryngology Branch, and the director of the DIR, as well as the deputy director for Intramural Clinical Research across the NIH Intramural Research Program. His research program identifies and characterizes molecular and cellular mechanisms of normal and disordered hearing and balance in humans and mouse models. Two primary interests of his program have been hearing loss associated with enlargement of the vestibular aqueduct, and the function of TMC genes and proteins. The latter work lead to the discovery that the deafness gene product TMC1 is a component of the hair cell sensory transduction channel. Since July of 2020, he has served as the Senior Associate Dean of Research and a Professor of Otolaryngology and Physiology in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Gwenaëlle S. G. Géléoc obtained a PhD in Sensory Neurobiology from the University of Sciences in Montpellier (France) in 1996. She performed part of her PhD training at the University of Sussex, UK where she characterized sensory transduction in vestibular hair cells and a performed a comparative study between vestibular and cochlear hair cells. Gwenaelle continued her training as an electrophysiologist at University College London studying outer hair cell motility and at Harvard Medical School studying modulation of mechanotransduction in vestibular hair cells. As an independent investigator at the University of Virginia, she expanded this work and characterized the developmental acquisition of sensory transduction in mouse vestibular hair cells, the developmental acquisition of voltage-sensitive conductances in vestibular hair cells and the tonotopic gradient in the acquisition of sensory transduction in the mouse cochlea. This work along with quantitative spatio-temporal studies performed on several hair cell mechanotransduction candidates lead her to TMC1 and 2 and long-term collaborations with Andrew Griffith and Jeff Holt. Dr. Géléoc is currently Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, at Boston Children’s Hospital where she continues to study molecular players involved in the development and function of hair cells of the inner ear and develops new therapies for the treatment of deafness and balance, with a particular focus on Usher syndrome.
Jeff Holt earned a doctorate from the Department of Physiology at the University of Rochester in 1995 for his studies of inward rectifier potassium channels in saccular hair cells. He went on to a post-doctoral position in the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he characterized sensory transduction and adaptation in hair cells and developed a viral vector system to transfect cultured hair cells. Dr. Holt’s first faculty position was in the Neuroscience Department at the University of Virginia. In 2011 the lab moved to Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School. Dr. Holt is currently a Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology and Neurology in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center. Dr. Holt and his team have been studying sensory transduction in auditory and vestibular hair cells over the past 20 years, with particular focus on TMC1 and TMC2 over the past 12 years. This work lead to the discovery that TMC1 forms the hair cell transduction channel. His work also focuses on development gene therapy strategies for genetic hearing loss.
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