Postdoctoral Fellow

Summary:

The Ragon Institute is a highly unique, innovative, and collaborative research center at the forefront of biomedical science. Founded by Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT, and Harvard, the Ragon vision is a bold one: to harness the power of the immune system to prevent and cure human disease on a global scale. This vision is pursued and advanced every day by a group of highly motivated individuals. The Ragon Institute, at every level, depends upon collaboration, compassion, dedication, and innovation. It is a results-oriented organization that seeks people who not only embrace these values but who thrive in teams and want to work in a dynamic environment.

The Kwon Laboratory (www.kwonlab.org) at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston has an opening for a highly motivated postdoctoral fellow to study host-microbe interactions in the female reproductive tract that impact human health. The person hired will work under the supervision of Dr. Kwon conducting patient-oriented translational research involving curated, high dimensional, multiomics data integration, including analysis of metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics, host single cell transcriptomics and clinical metadata. Projects will utilize large, well characterized patient cohorts based in the US and sub-Saharan Africa to understand host-microbiota interactions and their impact on HIV, pregnancy, fertility, TB, and cancer.

Candidates will have ample opportunities to acquire and develop new skills, work closely with the PI and collaborators, and communicate results to the scientific community through conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications while working in a supportive, highly collaborative, and energetic environment. State-of-the-art facilities are available within an exceptionally energetic research setting at the Ragon Institute, which is part of Massachusetts General Hospital, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard Medical School. We are a mission-oriented group of highly motivated scientists from the fields of immunology, microbiology, virology, genetics, and technology development who perform translational research.

Job Duties:

Under the direction of the principal investigator, the applicant will independently carry out activities performing research. Specifically, a large effort in the lab is underway to integrate and analyze a multiomic dataset from thousands of samples from a prospective study with thousands of participants of the vaginal microbiome, mucosal immune state, and health outcomes. Duties include:

* Integrate and organize existing data from many modalities, including 16S amplicons, shotgun metagenomics, multiplex ELISA, metabolomics, and more.
* Interface with researchers in the lab generating new data and continuously process raw data to assess the quality of new data
* Lead the biological analysis and interpretation of the data of these multiple modalities
* Work closely within the group and with outside collaborators
* Mentor students and technicians
* Maintain close communications with the PI regarding progress
* Write, edit, and submit manuscripts/abstracts detailing the results of the project
* Demonstrate integrity, excellence, accountability and teamwork in all interactions
* A Ph.D. and/or M.D. with 3 or more years of relevant experience in microbiome characterization and relevant computational approaches required
* Experience in integrating multiple data types from many samples, with an understanding of raw-data generation and bioinformatic processing, as well as downstream analysis of high-dimensional multimodal data.
* Highly motivated and independent, with the ability to work in a dynamic team environment
* Exceptional organizational skills and excellent attention to detail
* Strong oral and written communications skills
* Must have good interpersonal skills