A computational postdoc position in the Miraldi Lab (miraldilab.cchmc.org) to build mutually-informative in silico and organoid models of gastrointestinal diseases for prediction of patient-specific responses. The position revolves around analysis of multi-'omic, single-cell datasets generated from patient biopsies and organoids. Postdoc will contribute to building a UM1 Center (reporter.nih.gov/search/mIPVX4LPXEaAoKx8RY7jtg/project-details/11302052):
Millions of people in the US are impacted by gastrointestinal diseases including Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Metabolic Disfunction Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD) and Pancreatitis. There are only a small number of drugs for IBD and MASLD, and none for Pancreatitis. Animal models have proven inadequate surrogates for these diseases and reliance on current preclinical evaluations are considered to be among the most problematic steps in drug discovery.
The goal of Cincinnati Advanced NAM Development and Operational Research center (CANDOR) is to develop combinatorial New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) that more accurately model the pathophysiologic complexity and drug responses in patients with these gastrointestinal (GI) diseases.
The aims of CANDOR are:
1) to establish in vitro NAMs (tissue organoids derived from patient induced pluripotent stem cells) that accurately model clinical features of IBD, MASLD, and Pancreatitis;
2) to build disease-focused in silico NAMs that are based on integration across multiple modeling and patient-derived data types (gene regulatory and cell-cell communication networks from sn-multiome-seq and spatial transcriptomics of in vivo patient biopsies + in vitro organoids; genomics data also inform pharmacometrics and artificial intelligence modeling of patient responses from clinical data, polygenic risk scores and histology);
3) to iteratively refine in vitro and in silico NAMs; and
4) to validate and disseminate combinatorial NAM technologies through training, outreach, and distribution.
PhD with relevant experience in some (but not necessarily all) of the following areas: computational and systems biology, genomics, machine learning, mathematical modeling, bioinformatics
Interested candidates please send letter of intent and CV to Emily Miraldi via e-mail: emily.miraldi at cchcm.org
More info at miraldilab.cchmc.org