Pipas Lab Hiring for a Postdoctoral Position: Metagenomics

The Pipas laboratory, located in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, is seeking a highly motivated individual for a postdoctoral position focusing on microbial and viral genome biology and metagenomics. The Pipas laboratory is interested in understanding factors that limit pathogen growth in different hosts. This involves both molecular studies aimed at understanding the mechanisms of pathogen growth restriction at the cellular level, and ecosystem scale metagenomic experiments to monitor the temporal and geographical movement of known and undiscovered pathogens across different hosts.

This postdoctoral position will work as part of a multi-institutional team anchored by Microsoft, Inc., and including the University of Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington, Tomorrow.io and the Harris County Public Health Department. The research program, entitled Computing the Biome, funded by the National Science Foundation's Convergence Accelerator program is centered on Microsoft's Project Premonition (https://innovation.microsoft.com/en-us/premonition) that seeks to use mosquitoes as biosensors for detecting the presence of vertebrates, microbes, and viruses in the environment. Microsoft has developed AI-assisted robotic systems that can detect, identify, and selectively capture specific mosquito species. The NSF-funded effort is to deploy these smart traps in Harris County, Texas. Selected mosquito samples will be sequenced and this data will be used in studies of mosquito genomics at Johns Hopkins University. The Pipas laboratory’s role will be to study the mosquito-associated microbiome and virome.

The postdoctoral fellow will be responsible for analyzing metagenomic data from mosquitoes and from mosquito habitats, such as wastewater. The responsibilities include isolation of nucleic acids for sequencing and PCR studies, the assembly and annotation of the genomes of bacteria, plasmids, and bacteriophage associated with mosquitoes or isolated from the environment, as well as the identification and isolation viral genomes of special interest. Thus, a combination of computational and molecular bench skills is required. This individual will work closely with Harris County Public Health, computer scientists at Microsoft and Vanderbilt, entomologists at Johns Hopkins, and modelers at the University of Washington. Candidates should have a recent Ph.D. and experience in virology, microbiology, or molecular and cellular biology.

The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and values equality of opportunity, human dignity and diversity. EOE, including disability/vets.

Please direct inquiries to: James M. Pipas at pipas@pitt.edu.

 

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