Postdoctoral position to study mouse preimplantation development in Paris

In order to implant in the uterus, mammalian embryos must first form blastocysts. Blastocyst formation is therefore essential for mammalian development, and understanding what allows it to proceed normally will notably help improve assisted reproductive technologies. Our team’s recent work in mice revealed the involvement of the TGFβ family member NODAL in this key step of development, much earlier than was previously known. Our unpublished results show that the formation, differentiation, and survival of early blastocysts depend on the presence of NODAL, and that this requirement has so far been masked by maternal and/or sibling contributions.

A two-year postdoctoral position is available in our team, starting from 1 November at the earliest, to further these investigations as part of a collaborative project funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR). The successful candidate will employ a variety of techniques, including transcriptomic and epigenomic analyses, labelling methods, genome editing, embryo culture and real-time imaging, to characterise the molecular defects associated with the phenotype and identify effectors acting downstream of NODAL and their direct targets.

Applicants should have a PhD in developmental or cell biology, less than 2 years of postdoctoral experience and the ability to work independently as part of a collaborative project. Excellent oral and written communication skills in English are also required. While previous experience of studying mouse embryos or analysing single-cell omics data is a plus, it is not a prerequisite.

This position is based within the ‘Regulation of Cell Fate Specification’ team at the Institut Jacques Monod (http://www.ijm.cnrs.fr/). The IJM is a joint CNRS-Université Paris Cité research unit comprising 27 teams and around 350 researchers, technicians, students and support staff. The IJM is housed in a modern university building on the Paris Rive Gauche campus in the 13^th arrondissement of Paris and is accessible by all modes of transport.

Applicants should send a motivation letter, a CV including a full list of publications and presentations, a statement of their research interests and the names of three referees to Jérôme Collignon at jerome.collignon(at)ijm.fr.