Supervisor: Dr Sumeet Pal Singh
We are thrilled to announce a unique opportunity for passionate candidates to join our research team as a PhD Fellow in Regenerative Biology, with a focus on exploring cellular plasticity in liver regeneration.
About the Project:
Liver has amazing regenerative capabilities. Upon minor injuries the functional liver cells, hepatocytes, recover by self-renewal. Amazingly, upon a major injury, the ductal cells in the liver can generate hepatocytes. This is the current accepted paradigm for adult liver regeneration.
However, by looking at liver regeneration in a rapidly growing animal, when the cells of the body are at the edge of their replicative potential, we found that any injury to the liver recovers by ductal-to-hepatocyte transdifferentiating, challenging the current paradigm.
The PhD student will be tasked with understanding three main aspects of the process:
- What provides enhanced plasticity of the ductal cells in a growing animal?
- What restricts hepatocytes to enhance their replication in a growing animal?
- What role does nutrition plays in the decisions related to cell fate.
For this, we will start the project by generating a spatial and temporal atlas of liver regeneration in the growing animal using single-cell RNA-Seq (using 10x and Parse-Bio), single-cell ATAC-Seq and spatial transcriptomics. Thus, an strong interest in combining bench work with bioinformatics analysis will be needed for the project.
What We Offer:
State-of-the-Art Facilities: Our institution is committed to providing the resources needed for you to excel in your research endeavors.
Travel Fund: One fully funded trip to a conference in Europe every year of the PhD and one non-European conference once the project is more mature. Typically, the lab attends the bi-annual EMBO Meeting on ‘The molecular and cellular basis of regeneration and tissue repair’. In October 2024, the conference will be in France, which the candidate will attend (https://coming-soon.embo.org/w24-65).
Expert Mentorship: An independent thesis committee will evaluate the progress and provide feedback to the candidate and the PI. Additionally, yearly personalized sessions on improving presentations skills are provided. Further, networking sessions with the biotech and pharma industry is accessible on campus.
Training:
We have programs set up in the lab for training new students in animal handling, experimentation, confocal imaging, image analysis and bioinformatics. We do not expect the candidate to have experience in these. Passion for regenerative biology and a commitment to learning and improving skills is what we are looking for.