[OFER-TRABEC] NAC: Postdoctoral or predoctoral fellowship

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Bolsa de empleo: http://www.biocat.cat/es/bolsa-de-empleo
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Institución:IBMC, Porto, Portugal
Contacto correo-e:sribeiro@ibmc.up.pt
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One position is open for the recruitment of a highly motivated research fellow with PhD or Master degrees to work on the project "Biochemical and functional analysis of Cyplasin, a cancer cytotoxic protein from the marine slug Aplysia punctata", funded by "Cyplasin Biomedical Ltd.", under a research fellowship contract with Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular (IBMC, Porto, Portugal) and the groups of Chromosome Instability & Dynamics and Protein Crystallography.

The fellowship, under exclusive dedication, will have an initial appointment of 6 months, renewable for up to 12 months, starting on April 1st, 2014. Renewal after this 12 months period will depend on successful achievement of defined milestones, according to the working program attached. The monthly allowance of these fellowships will be € 1.495,00 (PhD) or € 980,00 (Master), which might be supplemented by Volunteer Social Security, paid by bank transfer (preferentially).

Fellowship #1 - PhD or Master degree in Biochemistry or similar areas, with demonstrated lab. experience and autonomy, excellent mastering of molecular biology techniques, recombinant protein expression and purification. Applicants with consolidated experience in protein overexpression in mammalian cells and/or baculovirus, will be considered as very competitive for this position. Preference will be given to applicants with skills in protein characterization by biochemical (e.g enzyme kinetics) and biophysical analysis (e.g. circular dichroism, differential scanning fluorimetry). English communication skills (oral and written) will be required.

Selected candidates will be integrated in a multidisciplinary environment under scientific supervision of Dr. Helder Maiato (Head of the Chromosome Instability & Dynamics Group) and Dr. Sandra Macedo Ribeiro (Head of the Protein Crystallography Group).

Applications should be submitted between February 14th and March 14th include a motivation letter identifying the fellowship of interest (#1) a brief CV and two recommendation letters, submitted directly at the IBMC website:

http://www.ibmc.up.pt/gestaocandidaturas/index.php?codigo=PR331401

For additional information please contact: Dr. Sandra Macedo-Ribeiro (sribeiro@ibmc.up.pt)


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Información complementaria de la oferta:
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Cancer research has often used a reductionist approach to identify single causes which permit a normal cell to become a cancerous one. However, it proved to be extremely difficult to differentiate between events causally related to tumorigenesis and epiphenomena which occur in parallel but are unrelated to the causal chain of events. Thus chemotherapies which are designed to treat what are thought to be single tumor specific events have pronounced side effects by virtue of their action against similar properties of non-tumor cells. They are however tolerated if the net effect is to reduce tumor growth and extend survival. Given the fact that the development and success of a tumor cell is most probably a process of thousands of mutually interacting events between the transformed cell and the other cells/tissues of the organism, a holistic approach may prove more successful than the treatment which is outlined above. The change of direction diverts us from our efforts to unders
tand single cancer-typic events and develop adequate counter-strategies in order to concentrate on the real goal, namely to achieve a preferential elimination of cancer cells notwithstanding their often intimate resemblance to normal cells. It is this novel approach which led to the discovery and isolation of Cyplasin from the marine slug Aplysia punctata.
The criteria for selecting a new substance for cancer therapy are always to find a selective cytotoxic effect for tumor cells as compared with normal non-tumorous cells. The normal cell is in practice a difficult target to identify in the laboratory since many cell types derived from normal cells of an organism tend to change their properties when kept in vitro. Sometimes apparently normal cells obtained from normal tissue may have acquired certain protein modifications during their in-vitro cultivation which are found preferentially in transformed cells. The original screening experiments for cytotoxic substances derived from the marine environment were performed using human fibroblasts in comparison with human bladder cancer cells. The fibroblasts were considered to have retained their "normal" character. After examining hundreds of substances, many of them with cytotoxic properties (albeit non- selective), the mucus of the sea slug Aplysia punctata showed such properti
es, killing the human bladder tumor cells within minutes at a given dilution which had no effect on human fibroblasts.
Here we propose to identify possible Cyplasin-binding sites on the cell membrane of tumor cells, to investigate possible Cyplasin-triggered cell death pathways and purify active Cyplasin for functional studies in tumor cell lines.

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