Researcher in Biology - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

Researcher position to genotype and investigate expressed immunity genes and telomere length in wild and captive birds.  

Project description
We would like to recruit a researcher 100% to the Department of Biology, Lund University, for 9 months. The research focus is to investigate how selection from pathogens results in adaptations in the immune system of the hosts, and how bird hosts are affected by being parasitized. We will test to what degree different immunity genes are expressed in hosts that have been subject to different strengths of selection from pathogens, and gene expression patterns and telomere length degradation in parasitized vs. non-parasitized birds. The study species are wild house sparrows and great reed warblers, and captive canaries.

Work tasks
The researcher will coordinate the molecular genetic labwork, specifically the preparation of libraries for high-throughput sequencing and down-stream bioinformatic analyses and conduct (qPCR) analyses of gene expression and telomere length, as well as writing scientific articles to be published in peer-reviewed international journals. The researcher will be part of Docent Helena Westerdahl’s research group (the ERC Start-up project ‘Optimal-Immunity’) and Prof. Dennis Hasselquist’s research group (the ERC Advanced Grant project ‘EcoImmuneCosts’), at the Molecular Ecology and Evolution Lab (MEEL) environment, Department of Biology, Lund University, Sweden. MEEL constitutes a strong research environment with six senior scientists, their PhD students and post docs, master project students and visiting scientists, in total 35-40 persons. MEEL spans several research areas and many study organisms, and is inter-connected by many within-group collaborations and shared (molecular, immunological, genetic and genomic) methods. The focus of the studies is on wild organisms in their natural environments (and often their parasites and/or immune protection), but also studies on wild caged as well as domesticated animals. For more information about MEEL see:

http://www.biology.lu.se/research/research-groups/molecular-ecology-and-evolution-lab

Qualifications

• PhD in the area of animal ecology or equivalent
• Extensive documented experience from molecular genetic laboratory work, such as DNA extraction, RNA extraction, PCR, Sanger sequencing, High throughput-sequencing, qPCR analyses.
• Experience of preparing libraries for Illumina Amplicon Sequencing
• Experience from analyzing data from Illumina Amplicon Sequencing
• Ability to conduct research independently as well as part of a research group and in collaborations
• Excellent communication skills, in particular for writing scientific articles for publication in internationally peer-reviewed journals
• A strong drive and experience for planning and leading, push-through and administrate research projects in the lab, and at the analyses and writing desk, as well as drive to publish the research results
• Fluent in English (in writing and spoken)

For more information please contact Helena Westerdahl (helena.westerdahl@biol.lu.se)