The laboratory of Dr. Peijun Ma in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN is a new research group that uses single-cell genomics and transcriptomics to study antibiotic resistance and persistence in bacterial pathogens. Past work has focused on developing bacterial single-cell RNA sequencing technology (Ma et al., Cell, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.01.002) and understanding the evolution of antibiotic resistance in gram-negative bacterial pathogens (Ma et al., eLife, 2021; https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67310).

The emergence of antibiotic resistance and persistence has become one of the biggest challenges for human health. One of the major issues in our current effort to combat antibiotic resistance and persistence is that we are mostly characterizing bacteria as whole populations; however, resistant and persistent clones usually emerge from single-cell events. The heterogeneity in bacterial populations has not been well characterized, and mechanisms leading to this heterogeneity are unclear. To address this problem, the Ma lab will apply innovative bacterial single-cell RNA sequencing technology to characterize bacterial drug-induced heterogeneity at single-cell levels. In addition, we will characterize the microbiome using bacterial single-cell genomics and transcriptomics to understand the evolution of antibiotic resistance and persistence in the context of the host microenvironment, especially in pediatric patients with recurrent bacterial infections. We believe this work will provide novel and exciting insight regarding bacterial heterogeneity and will lead to the identification of drug targets to treat bacterial infections associated with antibiotic resistance and persistence.

Specific areas of interest in the Ma lab include:

• Understanding the drug-induced bacterial heterogeneity and its impact on the development of drug persistence in bacterial pathogens.
• Investigating the impact of bacterial intrinsic heterogeneity, e.g., the cell cycle and bacterial cell-to-cell communication, on the development of drug resistance and persistence.
• Characterizing the microbiome using bacterial single-cell genomics and transcriptomics.
• Developing innovative sequencing technology to study bacterial heterogeneity at the single-cell level and genome-wide scale.

What you can expect

• Working closely with the PI to build and explore the emerging field of single-cell microbiology.
• Opportunity to learn both dry- and wet-lab skills for next-generation and third-generation sequencing technology, and skills to develop innovative sequencing technologies.

• Ph.D. in relevant scientific area is required.

We are seeking highly motivated postdoctoral researchers to build and explore the emerging field of microbial single-cell genomics. Candidates are expected to have a background in molecular biology, microbiology, microbiome research, or other related fields. Experience with next-generation sequencing and computational skills will be preferred but not required.

St. Jude is an Equal Opportunity Employer

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