San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget) is leading worldwide research institute in the field of Gene Therapy. The Unit of “Safety and insertional mutagenesis”, directed by Dr. Eugenio Montini, is in charge of molecular analysis of clinical and pre-clinical studies to assess the safety and long term efficacy of the gene therapy treatment (Ferrari, 2020, doi.org/10.1038/ s41576-020-00298-5) and modelling clonal evolution over time. We are also studying the phenotype and fate of transplanted human and mouse hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells marked with specific vector constructs and evaluating their impact on the hematopoietic reconstitution in different mouse models. Moreover, we are using chromatin conformation capture technology to study the physical interactions between integrated lentiviral vector constructs and the surrounding chromatin to observe and compare chromatin conformation changes occurring in the genome after the semi-random insertion of vector constructs containing different genetic elements.
The bioinformatics group, led by Andrea Calabria, is aimed at supporting all the research lines, with particular focus on
(1) efficiently processing big data (genomic data) on high performance computing in distributed environments,
(2) developing new algorithms, statistical methods and software tools to support the assessment of safety and long term efficacy in vivo (Calabria, et al., 2020; Spinozzi, et al., 2017),
(3) developing new bioinformatics approaches to dissect the human hematopoiesis and its reconstitution in vivo after transplantation,
(4) developing new methods for AAV delivery and gene editing approaches, and
(5) developing new methods for studying chromatin conformation using genomic data (such as Hi-C).
The specific research line of Andrea Calabria is on modelling in patients the hematopoietic reconstitution and lineage specific dynamics.
We are looking for highly motivated candidates with a long term commitment for translational research. This call is open to Postdocs or MSc candidates with the ambition to pursuit a PhD in computer science or bioinformatics or biostatistics.
Programming skills/attitude are required to support autonomous work.
Postdoc or MSc
Please send a letter of interest and a CV.