Postdoctoral Fellow in Cancer Drug Discovery (Chemical Biology)

The Duckett lab is seeking to hire a highly motivated postdoctoral fellow in the department of Drug Discovery at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute who wants to develop and apply cutting-edge technology for biomedical research in the growing field of small molecule-induced protein degradation. Our lab is pursuing highly multidisciplinary and collaborative research at the interface of molecular biology, functional genetics, medicinal chemistry and bioinformatics.

The focus of the lab is identifying novel anti-cancer targets, developing, new selective molecular probes of these targets as tools to interrogate how their altered signaling drives tumor progression, metastasis, therapy resistance and mechanisms of immune escape. Using pharmaceutical practices, we aim to optimize these new probes as potential therapeutics. The successful candidate will be involved in an exciting new project to determine the mechanism underlying small molecule protein degraders and their application in anti-cancer research.

Position Highlights:

• The position is for a Postdoctoral fellow to join an interdisciplinary team to develop new agents designed to modulate targets previously considered difficult to drug
• Opportunity to gain drug discovery experience, conduct independent research in chemical biology and develop new compounds with novel mechanism of action to interrogate oncogenic signaling pathways.

The Ideal Candidate:

Successful candidates will have a strong background in cancer biology with a keen interest in drug discovery research.

• Prior experience is required with some of the following techniques:
o mammalian cell culture.
o experience in chemical biology techniques.
o biochemistry/ enzymology.
o drug discovery cell-based assay development.
o molecular and cell biology.
o experience in vivo mouse efficacy studies.
• excellent oral and written communication skills are required while experience in the above skills is highly preferred, applicants with related skills set are encouraged to apply.

Responsibilities:

• This individual will perform investigational studies using human cell lines, primary patient derived spheroids, and tumor samples.
• Designing and perform experiments independently and analyze data.
• Identify and validate targets from existing RNA seq and proteomic data sets.
• Perform experiments aimed at elucidating compound mechanism of action.
• Participate in data interpretation and crafting manuscripts for publication.

Credentials and Qualifications:
• MD or PhD in chemical biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, or relevant field.