Post-doctoral Research Associate – Investigating lineage fidelity during development

Lineage fidelity and infidelity in stem cells and development. 

Philpott Lab,  in the Stem Cell Institute University of Cambridge

Mechanisms that lead to the establishment and maintenance of cell identity are paramount for organismal health. They also underpin successful cellular reprogramming for disease modelling and cell replacement therapies. Alongside experimental lab work using embryonic stem cells, cancer cells and Xenopus frog embryos, Anna Philpott’s lab, in collaboration with Ben Simons’ lab, makes use of experimental, analytical and computational approaches to study mechanisms of lineage fidelity and transcriptional reprogramming of cell fate during development and in disease. Current interests include the roles played by the epigenome and cofactors in regulating lineage transcription factor-mediated establishment and stabilisation of cell fate.

This project will use single cell transcriptomic and multi-omic analysis to determine the cellular response to transcription factor reprogramming and will focus on the response of cells using the in vivo Xenopus embryo system (full training given), while aligning closely with related work on ES cells in the lab.  This project may use many techniques including genome-wide analysis of gene expression in single and multiple cells, chromatin binding and accessibility studies, CRISPR genome editing as well as classical embryology and biochemistry.