06 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Umea University, Sweden 

The postdoctoral candidate will be part of the Simons Foundation initiative “Promoting functional brain maintenance – insights from successful agers” which adopts a longitudinal approach to study brain structure and function in highly selected individuals resisting typical age-related deteriorations in cognition.

The project encompasses a diverse range of methodologies, including behavioral studies and brain imaging techniques, all aimed at elucidating mechanisms and factors supporting maintained plasticity in aging.

The postdoctoral candidate will work with researchers from various fields and will be involved in human lab experiments, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), brain imaging techniques focusing on the cerebral vasculature and brain structure.

The details of the appointment will be determined together with the postdoctoral supervisors, depending on the specific interests and competencies of the applicant and the needs of the project. Regardless of specific research questions, the work will include analyses and interpretation of imaging data.

The Libby research group, based at IceLab and the Department of Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics (Umeå University), conducts research on microbial ecology and evolution on topics concerning the evolution of complexity. Given that many microbial interactions are mediated by chemicals such as metabolites, the chemical environment contains public information concerning the details of microbial interactions. Yet, metabolism is plastic so organisms have multiple ways to grow and different strategies may evolve. Thus, there are opportunities for signalling and manipulation. The primary objective of this postdoctoral postion is to enhance our understanding of the types of strategies that may be enacted in this context and how the various constraints of metabolic systems may define the possible interactions. The postdoctor’s role will be to use mathematical models and metabolic models to study the evolution and dynamics of these microbial interactions.

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved self-eating process mainly purposed to eliminate or recycle dysfunctional cellular organelles or unused proteins. Autophagy plays an important role in development and ageing and has been associated with diverse human diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration and pathogen infection. Emerging evidence shows that autophagy machinery also plays a role in several autophagy-independent processes. These “noncanonical” autophagy (NCA) pathways occur independent of part of the core autophagy machinery and play an important role in immune regulation and inflammation, modulation of the host-pathogen interaction, regulation of neuronal signaling and anti-cancer immunity.

Using a combination of cell biology, structural biology and chemical genetic approaches, we have elucidated fundamental mechanisms underlying autophagosome formation. Our laboratory has elaborated a novel mode of action for virulent bacteria (Legionella pneumophila, Vibrio cholerae) affecting host autophagy (eLife 2017, JCS 2021, JCB2022). We have identified novel chemotypes for autophagy modulation and new cellular pathways involved in autophagy regulation (Angew Chem 2017, Nat Chem Biol 2019, Autophagy 2021, Angew Chem 2022). Recently, we have made new findings in NCA. We identified the novel lysosomal targeting compound Inducin and ESCRT-III targeting compound Tantalosin that induce NCA (ChemBioChem 2023, PNAS 2024). We discovered a new pathway, the sphingomyelin-TECPR1 axis and TECPR1-ATG5–ATG12 as an alternative E3-like ligase for ATG8 lipidation in NCA (EMBO Rep 2023). This project will combine biochemical, cell biological and novel chemical approaches to understand molecular mechanisms of canonical and noncanonical autophagy. The techniques used in the project include protein expression and purification, protein/peptide synthesis, biochemical characterization, in vitro reconstitution, cell imaging, western blotting, and knock-out/down.

Single bacterial genomics and transcriptomics holds a great promise of improving our understanding of the microbiology world, discovering new enzymatic activities, or identifying the antibiotic resistance amongst others. Bacterial populations exhibit significant heterogeneity, allowing distinct cell subgroups to thrive in diverse environments. This environmentally induced heterogeneity prompts bacteria to respond through unique transcriptional programs, posing substantial experimental challenges in assaying individual cells accurately. Recent advancements in single-cell techniques, particularly single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), offer a powerful means to unravel cellular heterogeneity during infections and discern subpopulation variations that influence individual cell outcomes. However, current bacterial scRNA-seq methods suffer from the low number of cells being sequenced and the low number of transcripts detected in each cell. Therefore, our primary objective is two fold: i) to develop a novel high-throughput RNA sequencing technology tailored for single bacterial cells, and ii) to apply it on a model system (Yersinia sp.) in order to better understand the gene expression dynamics that drive cell response, adaptation and evolution.

For many years, successful research on prostate cancer has been ongoing at Umeå University. As a postdoctoral researcher, you will be part of a research group investigating molecular biological explanations for the development of prostate cancer and exploring how these can be used as biomarkers and treatment targets for the disease. More information about the research group and its activities can be found here: https://www.umu.se/en/research/groups/biomarkers-for-aggressive-prostatecancer/. The specific postdoctoral project aims to elucidate interactions between genetic and epigenetic changes in the emergence of bone metastases in prostate cancer and, based on these findings, identify and evaluate new treatment possibilities. The research will involve handling and analyzing biobank samples, bioinformatics analysis of large-scale data matrices, and evaluating potential treatment strategies in experimental model systems for prostate cancer.

The successful candidate will contribute to the Autonomous Distributed Systems (ADS) Lab within the Department of Computing Science. The ADS Lab is an internationally leading research group with a focus from distributed AI to autonomous resource management and modern. The Lab currently comprises over 20 experienced and world-leading research colleagues from more than 10 different countries. Collaborations are performed with industries like Google, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, and Ericsson, as well as universities and institutes such as Princeton University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Carnegie Mellon University, Princeton University, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Nanyang Technical University in Singapore, Uppsala University, Lund University, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Leeds University, Barcelona Supercomputer Center, TU Vienna, TU Delft, and many more.