Postdoctoral Fellow Position in Mechanosensitive Ion Channels (Peng Lab)
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
A motivated and detail-oriented PhD scientist is sought for an NIH-funded research project focusing on the molecular mechanisms of hair cell mechanotransduction, building on recently published work (Caprara et al., 2020, Science Advances; Li et al., 2020, Nature Communications). To see more about research in the lab, please visit www.haircellphysiology.com. The position will primarily entail performing patch clamp electrophysiology with mechanical stimulation and high-speed video recordings (10,000 fps). This position reports directly to Dr. Anthony Peng in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. The postdoctoral research fellow will be responsible for designing, performing, and analyzing research experiments. Applicants with experience in neuroscience, neurobiology, ion channel physiology, or cell biology would be strong candidates. The start date of the position is as soon as desired and follows the NRSA stipend levels. There are also T32 fellowship opportunities available through an NIDCD funded training grant awarded to the Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery. The department and campus have multiple auditory and vestibular researchers as well as ion channel physiologists in a very collegial environment leading to multiple opportunities of collaboration. Additionally, our lab closely collaborates with Jung-Bum Shin’s lab at UVA which provides complementary expertise in hair cells. Colorado is a great place to live at any time with the vast outdoors of the Rocky Mountains at your doorstep. In the era of COVID-19, Colorado is even better with the space for hiking, paddle boarding, climbing, biking, trail running, camping, river sports, fishing, skiing/snowboarding, snow shoeing, etc., allowing us to get out and spread out.
Qualifications:
Minimum Requirements:
- PhD
- Electrophysiology experience is not required but a desire to learn electrophysiology is required.
- Willing to work with small rodents.
Desired or preferred:
- Quantitative background
- Communication and organizational skills.
To apply, please send a CV and a brief statement describing your qualifications, motivations, and research interests to anthony.peng@cuanschutz.edu and mention this job ad.
To apply for this job email your details to anthony.peng@cuanschutz.edu
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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