UPSC is a highly dynamic institute with around 200 employees, 30 principal investigators and about 10 associated principal investigators. Approximately half of our staff is non-Swedish and the working language is English. We recruit researchers from all over the world. More than 40 nations are represented at UPSC. Post-doctoral fellows have the most diverse nationalities, but also our PIs, graduate and undergraduate students represent many different nations.
Are you interested in joining us? Please have a look below for currently open job opportunities. You are also always welcome to contact our principal investigators directly if you are interested in working with them.
Two postdoctoral fellowships are open, one at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and one at the Department of Plant Physiology, which is part of the Umeå Plant Science Centre (www.upsc.se). Both departments are part of the Chemical Biological Centre (www.kbc.umu.se), which is as well as Umeå Plant Science Centre, a highly stimulating research environment at Umeå University.
We are looking for two highly motivated candidates to the projects “Evolutionarily conserved mechanisms of stress response that converge on Mediator and chromatin structure” and “Decoding Signalling Networks Controlling Plant Stress Responses”, two large multidisciplinary 5-year projects that involve several research groups.
Last day to apply: 29 February, 2020
Project description
We propose that plant stress responses are mediated by a central regulatory hub, the multiprotein Mediator complex, an evolutionarily conserved co-regulator complex required for transcription of all RNA polymerase II-dependent genes in eukaryotes. Our hypothesis is that Mediator integrates different stress signals to control the expression of genes required for stress acclimation through direct interaction with transcription factors and cis-elements and/or through chromatin remodelling. To reveal the regulatory mechanisms of Mediator and to functionally define stress responses at all organisational levels we will construct a holistic model of plant stress responses by combining multilayer network algorithms and hidden Markov models. Integrating collected experimental data from the different organisational levels, e.g. from the input signals, through the receiving mediator subunits and out to the changes in gene expression and the resultant stress response phenotype, will allow us to generate a dynamic and comprehensive model of the complex signalling networks triggered by exposure to stress.
We seek a highly motivated postdoctoral candidate to join our ongoing research project to characterize the regulatory mechanism of RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) collision in plants. The postdoctoral candidate is expected to use traditional and novel molecular biology tools to further shed light on the phenomenon of RNAPII collision.
Last day to apply is 15 March, 2020.
Project description
Organisms must interact favourably with their environment and the blueprint to do so is in their DNA. While our understanding of DNA units that code for proteins is robust, the bulk of DNA in higher eukaryotes does not code for proteins. Importantly, novel genomic technologies have recently found that many of these mysterious non-coding regions are dynamically transcribed (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkz1189). But how is widespread non-coding transcription regulating the output of coding transcription? A consequence of pervasive transcription is the increased probability of colliding RNA Polymerase II complexes that convergently transcribes the same DNA template. The project focusses on the extent and further molecular dissection of mechanisms underlying regulated coding/non-coding RNAPII collision events in Arabidopsis (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07010-6).
We seek a highly motivated postdoctoral fellow to join our research group as a bioinformatician/computational biologist. The aim of this project is to elucidate the roles of non-coding transcription in plants.
Last day to apply is 15 March, 2020.
Project description
Historically, molecular research has primarily focused on coding regions of genomes. However, cutting-edge sequencing techniques have shown that large parts of the non-coding genome are dynamically transcribed. While this was first believed to be insignificant transcriptional noise, it has quickly become apparent that non-coding transcription events are environmentally responsive and can play diverse biological roles. Nevertheless, our knowledge of how non-coding or pervasive transcription governs gene expression is particularly rudimentary in multicellular organisms, such as plants. We recently developed Native Elongation Transcript sequencing (NET-seq) to plants enabling us to detect many non-coding events in Arabidopsis (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkz1189). The postdoctoral fellow is expected to analyze publicly available sequencing datasets (e.g. NET-seq, ChIP-seq, RNA-seq) but also datasets generated by the research group. The project aims to develop NET-seq to a tree species, aspen, to further gain knowledge of how transcription dynamics and non-coding transcription determine the enormous plasticity of trees.
https://www.upsc.se/undergraduate/1430-undergraduate-education.html
UPSC group leaders: https://www.upsc.se/research/research-groups.html
UPSC associated group leaders: https://www.upsc.se/research/associated-research-groups.html