Postdoctoral Researchers, mRNA delivery by targeted natural nanoparticles

Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research?

The Department of Laboratory of Medicine, located in Huddinge Campus, is one of the Karolinska Institutet’s largest departments with seven divisions, including the Clinical Research Centre (CRC), where the project will be carried out.

350 people are employed at the department, half of which are PhD-students. The Centre provides the facilities needed for cell- and molecular biology research and the possibility to perform research in vivo.

Our research

Our research efforts in the Nordin lab focuses on one of the greatest challenges facing modern therapeutics, delivery. Despite the unprecedented knowledge of diseases and their mechanisms due to advances in biomedical sciences; many promising therapeutic approaches are still clinically unavailable. This is simply because there is no efficient means of delivering these therapeutics to the right organ with the right dose. Such therapeutics include proteins for replacement therapy or antibodies for anti-inflammatory treatment as well as nucleic acids for gene therapy of diseases.

The Nordin group develops innovative cell- and gene-therapies for advanced applications. We have developed a novel method to screen targeting proteins for extracellular vesicles (EVs).
Today the targeting capacity of EVs is poor with the most promising strategies for CNS targeting achieving around 1% of the injected dose reaching the brain. With our novel system we believe we will be able to increase the targeting capacity radically. The novel method utilizes NGS to find variants that increase the distribution to certain organs from millions of variants. With increased targeting we can begin to realize the potential of delivery by the EVs to hard-to-reach tissues, such as CNS and bone marrow.

Your mission

We are seeking two highly motivated persons to join the group of Assistant Professor Joel Nordin as a Postdoctoral Researcher to work on the development of bioengineered targeted nanoparticles.

Most of the research will be conducted utilizing cell lines and animal models.
The overreaching goal of the project is to develop natural nanoparticles effectively loaded with specific RNA molecules targeted to specific cells and organs, in this project mainly CNS and hematopoietic stem cells in bone marrow. mRNA therapeutics have gained more interest with covid vaccines proving their applicability in clinical medicine.  However, the delivery vectors used today are still toxic after systemic repeated injections and mainly deliver the mRNA to liver. Hence, in this project we will utilize extracellular vesicles (EVs), that are natural non-toxic nanoparticles released by all cells. EVs contain macromolecules, such as mRNA and proteins and can be engineered to be loaded with various cargo, such as mRNA, siRNA and CRISPR/Cas9. The loading of mRNAs and targeting of EVs are today at best poor. Therefore, we aim to improve both the loading and targeting and finally unleash the potential of EV mRNA delivery to hard-to-reach tissues. This would enable us to treat several diseases that is out of reach today. Since this is a large project with several components two PostDocs will be hired to carry out the project.

Your profile

The applicant should have a solid background in basic- or molecular biology and/or experience working with plasmid libraries. The position requires practical lab experience in the following areas: foremost experience with PCR, cloning, cell culture, lentivirus production, NGS sequencing and sequencing bioinformatics. Experience from NGS and bioinformatics as well as previous skills regarding working with library screens, such as phage display, CRISPR libraries or plasmid libraries is all a merit. The ideal candidate would furthermore have experience within the EV- or virus-field and experience with molecular cloning is a merit, but neither are required.

In addition, excellent proficiency in both spoken and written English is important. We are looking for an energetic and passionate person who fits in, and actively contributes to our team.

Qualified to be employed as a postdoctor is one who has obtained a doctorate or has equivalent scientific competence. It is considered as an advantage if you have completed your doctoral degree within the last three years, if there are special reasons, your degree may have been completed earlier. Applicants who have not completed a doctorate at the end of the application period may also apply, provided that all requirements for a completed degree are met before the (intended) date of employment. This must be substantiated by the applicant's main supervisor, director or equivalent.

What do we offer?

A creative and inspiring environment with wide-ranging expertise and interests. Karolinska Institutet is one of the world's leading medical universities. Our vision is to pursue the development of knowledge about life and to promote a better health for all. At Karolinska Institutet, we conduct successful medical research and hold the largest range of medical education in Sweden. At KI, you get to meet researchers working with a wide range of specialisms and methods, giving you ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with the various scientific fields within medicine and health. It is the crossover collaborations, which have pushed KI to where it is today, at the forefront of global research. Karolinska Institutet is also a state university, which entitles you to several benefits through our collective agreement.


Location: Flemingsberg

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Application
An employment application must contain the following documents in English or Swedish:

-A complete resumé, including date of the thesis defence, title of the thesis, previous academic positions, academic title, current position, academic distinctions, and committee work
-A complete list of publications
-A summary of current work (no more than one page)

Welcome to apply at the latest 25th of March 2022

The application is to be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

 

Want to make a difference? Join us and contribute to better health for all