Jobs Available

Postdoc in Chemical Biology/Neurobiology

NIH-funded positions are available immediately for postdoctoral fellows to develop and use novel tools to visualize the trafficking of endogenous neuronal proteins in vivo, with high fidelity and in real time. Our approach is to generate peptide or protein aptamers, termed "intrabodies", that bind specifically to endogenous neuronal proteins and that can link them to fluorescent reporters. We use mRNA display, an in vitro protein selection method conceived, developed, and implemented by one of us (Roberts), which can been used to design peptides that bind with nanomolar to picomolar affinity and great specificity to virtually any target (W. W. Ja et al. Nat Chem Biol 3, 415 (Jul, 2007); R. W. Roberts, J. W. Szostak, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94, 12297 (1997)). Once generated, probes will be used to study the subcellular trafficking of neuronal proteins in cells and slices using conventional epifluorescence, confocal, and two photon microscopy (P. J. Chu, J. F. Rivera, D. B. Arnold, J Biol Chem 281, 365 (Jan 6, 2006); J. F. Rivera, S. Ahmad, M. W. Quick, E. R. Liman, D. B. Arnold, Nat Neurosci 6, 243 (2003)). Successful applicants can be chemists, molecular biologists or neurobiologists, and should be interested in working on an interdisciplinary project that involves molecular biology and protein chemistry as well as imaging.

Labeling neuronal proteins with intrabodies: A schematic of mRNA display procedure that can generate recombinant antibodies (intrabodies) that bind to virtually any target with nM affinity. B Intrabody generated against Kv4.2 and tagged with GFP (green) coexpressed with RFP (red) in a pyramidal neuron in a cortical slice. Kv4.2 is expressed at postsynaptic densities in amounts that decrease with distance from the cell body.

Applicants please send a CV, description of research, and 3 references to one of: