Looking for independent, motivated candidates with a proven background in bioinformatics and biology and good analytical skills, to reveal the mechanisms of cancer-resistance and anti-cancer activity of the Israeli Subterranean, Blind Mole-Rat, Spalax

This unique mammal is hypoxia- tolerant (down to 3% O2), oxidative-stress adapted, long lived (>20 years; ~4-5 times longer than its relative, the rat) and cancer-free. No spontaneous tumors have ever been observed in thousands of individuals along >40 years of studies. Moreover, Spalax is highly resistant to chemical carcinogens-induced tumor development, which led to the expected cancer in 100% of mice and rats. Most fascinating, Spalax fibroblast cells, but not of other species, secrete substance/s, yet to be identified, that lead to the death of cancer cells (but not of normal cells) from different species, including human cancer cells originated from a wide range of tissues (Manov et al., BMC Biol, 2013).

We recently sequenced its genome and discovered its unique organization (Fang et al., Nat. Comm, 2014). Further, differential gene expression from RNAseq data has revealed enrichment of genes that overlap cancer resistance, apoptosis, angiogenesis, and hypoxia-tolerance. (Malik et al., BMC Genomics, 2013)

We want to understand how these changes are translated into protection from cancer, so we can develop novel treatment strategies.

Applicants should be able to process large scale genomic data, such as raw RNA-seq, miR seq and Genomic sequencing, analyze the data, and biologically interpret it in high level. Accordingly, background in statistics, programming and scripting is required. (e.g., experience and knowledge in tools like Linux clusters, R, mysql, Matlab, perl, python, etc.). Background in cancer research and familiarity with TCGA [TheCancerGenomeAtlas] is an advantage.

Further details:
http://academicpositions.eu