Postdoctoral position on Telomeres

A Postdoctoral position is available in the laboratory of Miguel Godinho Ferreira to study DNA damage responses at telomeres in fission yeast. The laboratory is located at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência near Lisbon, Portugal. We are looking for a highly motivated scientist with a strong background in molecular biology and DNA damage responses willing to work in multidisciplinary environment that encompasses molecules, organism and disease. We are funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA) and the Foundation for Science and Technology (Portugal). Based on previous work from our group (Carneiro et al. Nature 2010), we are unravelling the mechanisms preventing the recognition of telomeres as DNA double-strand breaks. We propose that epigenetic environment at telomeres represents the hallmark of chromosome ends that distinguishes them from deleterious DNA lesions. To gain insights into the existence of such “chromatin privileged regions”, we are studying histone modifications both on nuclease induced DSBs and telomeres. The Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (http://www.igc.pt) is the Portuguese flagship of biomedical research. English is the main language in the campus (all seminars and communications are in English) and we have a significant foreign scientific community (ca. 30% from 34 countries). The Institute is privately supported by the Gulbenkian Foundation to carry biomedical research and education. The IGC offers excellent facilities and services to foreign and Portuguese research groups, in particular to young post-doctoral fellows. Attesting this, TheScientist/F1000 awarded us with the title Best Place to Work for postdocs in 2010 and 2011. Candidates are encouraged to send a cover letter, Curriculum vitae and two reference letters to Miguel Godinho Ferreira by email (mgferreira@igc.gulbenkian.pt) under the subject: “Postdoctoral position” by 28th February. For more information, please visit our web site: http://sites.igc.gulbenkian.pt/telomere/