The group of Ashley Laughney at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City , is seeking innovative and highly motivated postdoctoral researchers to study inter-cellular communication in the tumor microenvironment (TME).

Who are we? A cancer systems biology lab tackling the genotype-to-phenotype problem in cancer. We are made up of high inter-disciplinary team; wet and dry lab members readily synergize to identify and design experiments that test data-driven hypotheses.

What do we do? We combine high-throughput single cell sequencing with development of new computational tools, synthetic biology approaches and cancer models, to understand how the same genome-encoded components can give rise to diverse phenotypes, or cell functions, at different stages of disease progression.

What are we looking for? One way in which cells adapt diverse functional responses is through context-dependent interactions with their microenvironment. Cells typically send messages to their microenvironment by emitting ligands, which bind to complimentary receptors on the surfaced of target cells; then triggering a change in the behavior of the target cell. Complimentary ligand-receptor-pairs are well annotated and methods have been developed to infer cell-cell interactions from single cell expression data based on their mutual expression. However, existing work views each cell as an independent unit. We have taken the alternative view that cells sampled from the same TME are fundamentally participating in an underlying biological process and are working towards generating a principled understanding of how cells coordinate their behavior; which has the potential unlock deep biological insights into cancer progression, and suggest new targets for effective treatments. Exploiting inter- and intra-sample variability, we are developing new, innovative methods to infer the effect of a ligand-receptor-mediated interaction on the TME (Nature, 2023 ) and to characterize intercellular network dynamics. The successful candidate will be highly independent and benefit from a background in: variational inference, dynamical systems, network analysis, computational/systems biology or related fields.

Multiple positions are supported by NCI funding and through strong collaboration with the Samuel Bakhoum Lab (to study effects of chromosomal instability on the TME) and the Ben Izar Lab (to study cell-cell interactions in the human brain metastatic niche), and builds upon the exceptional resources and community of scientists at three of New York City’s premier research institutions: Weill Cornell Medical College , The Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center . We offer competitive benefits and access to subsidized Cornell housing in Manhattan and Roosevelt Island.

Interested applicants should email the following items as a single PDF to LaughneyLabPositions@gmail.com : (1) cover letter indicating research interests and reasons for applying, (2) your curriculum vitae, (3) names and contact information for three references and (4) up to two reprints. Postdoc applicants should additionally arrange for three letters of reference to be emailed directly to LaughneyLabPositions@gmail.com .

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