Post-doctoral Researcher: Fungal natural product discovery

Mohimanilab at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA invites application for a position at the level of Post-doctoral Researcher.

Natural products from microbial and plant sources are an essential source of novel drug leads. Fungal micro-organisms are a diverse and under-explored source for the discovery of novel bioactive natural products. Fungal natural products have diverse chemistries and bioactivities, exemplified by antibacterial penicillin, antifungal echinocandin, anticancer paclitaxel, immunosuppressant cyclosporin, and cholesterol-lowering medication lovastatin.

In the past, our lab has developed high-throughput methods for discovery of fungal natural products from LC-MS/MS and genomics data. The post-doctoral researcher will collect LC-MS/MS data on a library of ~2000 fungal strains from diverse taxa. This dataset will serve as a training data for discovery of novel fungal natural product drugs using machine learning algorithms. The postdoctoral researcher will be reporting to Dr. Hosein Mohimani and closely collaborating with Dr. Yi Tang.

Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities

1. Ph.D. or equivalent degree in Chemistry or Biochemistry.

2. Ability to work independently and strong interpersonal skills.

3. Experience with fermentation of microbial strains and extraction of metabolites is required. 

4. preparative HPLC and purification of small molecules highly desirable.

5. Experience with collection of LC-MS/MS data is highly desirable.