Post-Doctoral Position in Bioinformatics and Systems Immunology at the Institut Curie of Paris

Post-doctoral position in Bioinformatics and Systems Immunology at the Institut Curie of Paris

Application deadline: open from august 2012 until filled

Context and environment:Institut Curie is one of the largest European institutions for cancer research with strong interdisciplinary traditions. It also comprises a hospital specialized in cancer treatment, and therefore dispose of a continuum of expertise from basic research to patient care. It is located in the center of Paris in France, in a both cultural and scientific rich environment. Our immunology department includes 8 independent research teams in the fields of basic and applied immunology, working in a very collaborative and international environment. The open positionis in line with recent developments at the interface between immunology, bioinformatics and systems biology. It is supported by an ERC (European Research Council)-funded project.

More information: and u932.curie.fr

Project:The project under the supervision of Vassili Soumelis, will be co-developed in the two Inserm units of Institut Curie “Immunity and cancer” and “Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology of Cancer”, respectively headed by S. Amigorena and E. Barillot. Those immunology and bioinformatics teams have established a tight and fruitful collaboration, which has been successful over the past few years to improve our understanding of complex inflammatory and immune reactions.

Living systems are open systems that change state and behavior in relation to their environment. In this project, we consider the cell as the system of reference. We study the reciprocal interaction between cell state and its environment. We study dendritic cells of the immune system to address their interaction with environmental stimuli mimicking important steps of an immune response. We also study how immune cells integrate multiple information signals in complex inflammatory environments. The ultimate goal is to understand intercellular communication networks in diverse physiological and pathological conditions. Transcriptional profiling is mostly used in order to assess the global state of the cells, and how this state impacts the cellular response to individual or combined environmental stimuli. This project is supported by an ERC grant “Integrative biology of human dendritic cells”

Profile:Ideal candidate will have a PhD in statistics, applied mathematics, bioinformatics or biology and good publication records. Theoretical and applied knowledge in microarray data analysis, statistical signal processing, estimation theory, random processes theory, model selection theory will be valued. Some knowledge of cancer biology, cell biology and/or immunology is not mandatory but would be appreciated. Excellent communication skills and team spirit as well as a capacity to work in autonomy are essential. The project involves a tight interaction between computational and experimental work.

Position: The position benefits from a one year funding, which can be used as a start-up or as a prolongation of pre-existing fellowship. Selected candidate would have to apply for independent post-doctoral funding before or during their initial recruitment. Precise salary will depend on the funding agency, and past experience of the candidate

The Curie post-doctoral program is highlycompetitive and only outstanding candidates will be considered. Pleasesend CV and two letters of reference to

Selected recent publications:

1: Volpe E, Servant N, Zollinger R, Bogiatzi SI, Hupé P, Barillot E, Soumelis V. A critical function for transforming growth factor-beta, interleukin 23 and proinflammatory cytokines in driving and modulating human T(H)-17 responses. Nat Immunol. 2008 Jun;9(6):650-7.

2: Volpe E, Touzot M, Servant N, Marloie-Provost MA, Hupé P, Barillot E, Soumelis V. Multiparametric analysis of cytokine-driven human Th17 differentiation reveals a differential regulation of IL-17 and IL-22 production. Blood. 2009 Oct 22;114(17):3610-4.

3: Guiducci C, Gong M, Xu Z, Gill M, Chaussabel D, Meeker T, Chan JH, Wright T, Punaro M, Bolland S, Soumelis V, Banchereau J, Coffman RL, Pascual V, Barrat FJ. TLR recognition of self nucleic acids hampers glucocorticoid activity in lupus. Nature. 2010 Jun 17;465(7300):937-41.

4: Lepelletier Y, Zollinger R, Ghirelli C, Raynaud F, Hadj-Slimane R, Cappuccio A, Hermine O, Liu YJ, Soumelis V. Toll-like receptor control of glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis in human plasmacytoid predendritic cells (pDCs). Blood. 2010 Nov 4;116(18):3389-97.

5: Cavalieri D, Rivero D, Beltrame L, Buschow SI, Calura E, Rizzetto L, Gessani S, Gauzzi MC, Reith W, Baur A, Bonaiuti R, Brandizi M, De Filippo C, D'Oro U, Draghici S, Dunand-Sauthier I, Gatti E, Granucci F, Gündel M, Kramer M, Kuka M, Lanyi A, Melief CJ, van Montfoort N, Ostuni R, Pierre P, Popovici R, Rajnavolgyi E, Schierer S, Schuler G, Soumelis V, Splendiani A, Stefanini I, Torcia MG, Zanoni I, Zollinger R, Figdor CG, Austyn JM. DC-ATLAS: a systems biology resource to dissect receptor specific signal transduction in dendritic cells. Immunome Res. 2010 Nov 19;6:10.

6: Segura E, Valladeau-Guilemond J, Donnadieu MH, Sastre-Garau X, Soumelis V, Amigorena S. Characterization of resident and migratory dendritic cells in human lymph nodes. J Exp Med. 2012 Apr 9;209(4):653-60.

7: Bogiatzi SI, Guillot-Delost M, Cappuccio A, Bichet JC, Chouchane-Mlik O, Donnadieu MH, Barillot E, Hupé P, Chlichlia K, Efremidou EI, Aractingi S, Bayrou O, Soumelis V. Multiple-checkpoint inhibition of thymic stromal lymphopoietin-induced T(H)2 response by T(H)17-related cytokines. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2012 Jul;130(1):233-240.e5.