Postdoctoral fellow – Reptilian skin coloration

The LANE laboratory at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) is seeking a creative and highly motivated PostDoc to work on reptilian skin coloration. The position is funded by an HFSP Research Grant.

In the context of a highly multidisciplinary study investigating the development of skin colour patterns in snakes and lizards, we are looking for a Postdoc with strong interest in single cell transcriptomics. The goal of the project is to characterise the development of skin coloured cells (chromatophores) using sc RNA seq. The successful candidate will interact with a multidisciplinary team of physicists, computer scientists and biologists and will have access to state-of-the-art imaging and wet-lab facilities. The working language of the laboratory is English.

References

Ullate-Agote and Tzika (2021) Characterization of the Leucistic Texas Rat Snake Pantherophis obsoletus Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 

Ullate-Agote, Burgelin, Debry, Langrez, Montange, Peraldi, Daraspe, Kaessmann, Milinkovitch and Tzika (2020) Genome mapping of a LYST mutation in corn snakes indicates that vertebrate chromatophore vesicles are lysosome-related organelles Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 

Qualifications & skills

• PhD in biology-related sciences within the last five years
• Candidates should have a strong inner drive, independence, and willingness to work in a highly interdisciplinary team
• A good level of spoken and written English is essential
• A background in single-cell transcriptomics is preferred, but not required. 
• Programming experience in Python and R is a plus

Laboratory. The team’s projects are interdisciplinary, and aim at understanding the genetic determinism of skin colour patterns (especially in snakes and lizards) but also skin appendages (scales, hair, and spines) in amniotes. Besides standard molecular biology methods, we use confocal and light-sheet microscopy imaging, electron microscopy, mass spectrometry and deep sequencing.

Environment. The University of Geneva (UNIGE) is highly-renowned for its research and is among the best universities in the world. Geneva is an international city occupying a privileged geographical situation.

Contact. Interested applicants are invited to send (combined in a single PDF document) a motivation letter with a short statement of research interests, a CV and two references (full address, incl. email and phone number) to: Dr. Athanasia Tzika (athanasia.tzika@unige.ch)