Postdoctoral Associate

About the Job

Schulze Diabetes Institute
Department of Surgery
Postdoctoral Position in Transplant Tolerance Laboratories

The Transplant Tolerance Laboratories within the Department of Surgery's Schulze Diabetes Institute at the University of Minnesota Medical School is looking for a full‑time postdoctoral fellow to support translational immunology work in projects funded by NIH, Breakthrough T1D, and philanthropy. We are a laboratory that supports and conducts hypothesis‑driven research at both the basic and translational levels, with a clear focus on advancing human health.

Our overarching mission is to define the molecular mechanisms of peripheral tolerance through in‑depth immune monitoring. The laboratories utilize primary specimen from preclinical transplant models and human transplant recipients to develop and test precision immunotherapeutic approaches in the field of transplantation, metabolic disorders, and other diseases.

About the Study

The post‑doctoral fellow will work with an interdisciplinary team of PIs and Co‑Is within the Schulze Diabetes Institute. The projects focus on deep profiling of immune pathways that contribute to the induction and maintenance of tolerance in preclinical animal models and human transplant recipients.

Summary of Position

The Transplantation Tolerance Laboratories (TTL) are looking for an outstanding and highly motivated Postdoctoral Associate with a passion for exciting state‑of‑the‑art technology in the immune monitoring of transplant recipients. Overall, the Schulze Diabetes Institute TTL mission is to develop and optimize cell therapy approaches for use as immunotherapeutics in induction and maintenance of tolerance as well as identify, test, and validate biomarkers in various disease models.

The candidate will perform:
1) single cell whole transcriptome and TCR clonotype analysis using short‑ and long‑read next‑generation sequencing,
2) epigenetic profiling of immune cells to discern the temporal alterations induced by the tolerance regimens,
3) spectral flow cytometry for high dimensional analysis of the immune landscape, and
4) ex‑vivo and in‑vitro assays to determine the mechanisms of induction and maintenance of tolerance. Candidates will have the opportunity to engage in NIH‑funded on‑going translational and/or observational cohort studies and develop their own project within the ongoing research in a fast‑paced behavioral research environment. This position requires letters of support from at least two colleagues/supervisors.

The individual will work with a team of translational immunologists and report directly to Sabarinathan Ramachandran, Ph.D., Associate Professor, within the Schulze Diabetes Institute in the Department of Surgery. The individual will perform duties and responsibilities as a post‑doctoral researcher in the TTL. General laboratory functions are also expected of this position.

The position responsibilities include:

Molecular mechanisms of Immune Tolerance (75%)

• Obtains training and certification in human subjects' and preclinical animal research.
• Perform hands‑on single cell NGS and ATAC sequencing.
• Optimize and validate assays for immune monitoring.
• Perform in‑vitro functional assays.
• Coordinates, supervises, and assists in data collection.
• Perform large scale manufacturing of cell therapy products with bioreactors at the bench and contribute to research and development of assays with supervision.
• In‑vitro and ex‑vivo analysis of the tolerizing cell therapy product to define the mechanisms of action.
• In‑vitro and ex‑vivo knock‑in and knock‑out in immune subsets to define the molecular mechanisms of tolerance.
• Understanding of sample preparation, instrument optimization and data analysis.
• Thawing, washing, purification, culture of T cells, B cells and other cell types using sterile technique.
• Prepare media, and solutions under sterile conditions ahead of time for thawing and culturing cells and performing immunological assays.
• Maintain records of procedures and resultant data manually and electronically.
• Perform basic data quality evaluation, cleaning and normalization of FCS files and help in analyze data using licensed software.

Assisting…