Postdoc Fellow, Pancreatic Cancer TRC

About City of Hope City of Hope, an innovative biomedical research, treatment and educational institution with over 6,000 employees, is dedicated to the prevention and cure of cancer and other life-threatening diseases and guided by a compassionate, patient-centered philosophy.
Founded in 1913 and headquartered in Duarte, California, City of Hope is a remarkable non-profit institution, where compassion and advanced care go hand-in-hand with excellence in clinical and scientific research. City of Hope is a National Cancer Institute designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation's leading cancer centers that develops and institutes standards of care for cancer treatment.
Position Summary The Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope is looking for a talented Postdoctoral Fellow. This position is now available in the joint laboratory of Dr. Mustafa Raoof (Department of Surgery) and Dr. Yilun Liu (Department of Cancer Genetics an Epigenetics, Beckman Research Institute) of City of Hope. The focus of this collaboration relates to targeting transcription replication conflicts in pancreatic cancer.

Oncogenes, such as KRAS and MYC, place significant demands on replication and transcription. As a result, frequent encounters between replication and transcription machineries cause transcription-replication conflicts (TRCs). Unresolved TRCs, lead to: 1) replication fork collapse; 2) accumulation of unusual nucleic acid structures (such as R-loops); and 3) lethal DNA damage. Therefore, the survival of KRAS-driven pancreatic cancer depends on pathways that resolve TRCs.

Dr. Raoof has extensive experience with translational research (Nature, JNCI, Biomaterials, Nanomedicine: NBM). A full list of publications from Dr. Raoof can be found at the following link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1TKCWeqSojo5y/bibliography/public/

Dr. Liu has published extensively regarding molecular mechanisms pertaining to DNA damage avoidance and repair pathways (Nature Communications, Cell Reports, EMBO Journal and PNAS) A full list of publications from Dr. Liu can be found at the following link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/yilun.liu.1/bibliography/41165746/public/?sort=date&dire ction=descending

Key Responsibilities:

• In this project, we will perform basic mechanistic studies to explore the therapeutic targeting of TRCs and TRC resolution pathways in KRAS-driven pancreatic cancer.
• Ultimately, we will generate pre-clinical data that will result in therapeutic development of TRC targeting in pancreatic cancer.

Qualifications
Basic education, experience and skills required for consideration:

• Must hold a Ph.D. degree or equivalent by the starting date.
• Experience in biochemistry and/or cell biology is preferred.
• Applicants should have experience working with mouse models.

City of Hope is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, or status as a qualified individual with disability.