Jobdetail | Career | Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research

2022-06-24
BRICS - Braunschweig
Postdoctoral Scientist in epidemiological modelling for public health (f/m/d)
The department of Systems Immunology, led by Prof. Dr. Meyer-Hermann, at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), is offering the position of a Postdoctoral Scientist in epidemiological modelling for public health (f/m/d) The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research GmbH (HZI) is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers, the largest scientific organization in Germany. Scientists at the HZI develop strategies to better combat infectious diseases. Their goal is to develop novel approaches for the prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of infectious diseases. To this end, they study bacterial and viral pathogens and their interaction with the immune system and explore new active ingredients. You will work in a dynamic and interactive group of interdisciplinary researchers. The training of the Department members comprises physics, mathematics, bioinformatics, engineering, systems theory, and biology. Our research projects are strongly linked to data from partners in experimental labs or clinics. Our group is embedded in the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, one of the premier research organizations for infection research in Germany. The position comes with the possibility to pursue a university career and to be involved in teaching activities if this is desired. We offer a large degree of freedom to develop as an independent researcher towards the goal of becoming a group leader.
2022-06-24
HIRI Würzburg
ERC-funded postdoctoral position in cross-species RNA-seq (f/m/d)
The Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) is offering an ERC-funded postdoctoral position in cross-species RNA-seq (f/m/d) in the Research Group “Host-Pathogen-Microbiota Interactions” (HOPI) under the direction of Jun. Prof. Dr. Alexander Westermann. The Westermann lab at HIRI is recruiting a postdoc to work on an innovative ERC-funded research project. The project is centered on the role of RNA-mediated metabolism control in a predominant microbiota species during host colonization. The successful applicant will work with a dynamic team of scientists and will apply ‘cross-species RNA-seq’ technologies (Westermann & Vogel 2021 Nat. Rev. Genet.) to dissect bacterial RNA-mediated gene expression control and its functional consequences at the host-microbe interface. Our intestinal tract offers an attractive environment for both beneficial and pathogenic bacteria. The beneficial bacteria of our microbiota feast on undigested foods and provide numerous health benefits. Enteric pathogens see this environment as an entry point for infection. Both groups influence each other, creating a tripartite interaction with us, the host. Understanding this interaction represents an emerging research area to combat infections poised to improve human health. Bacteroides are key commensals in these triangular interactions, as they produce diffusible intermediates as part of their metabolism that are utilized by pathogens and the host (Bornet & Westermann 2022 Trends Microbiol.). Bacteroides metabolism control has been a major focus, but the field has focused mostly on transcriptional regulation. Recent work from my group demonstrated that Bacteroides employ noncoding RNAs to regulate metabolic genes (Ryan et al. 2020 Nat. Commun.). These insights raise the questions: what is the mechanism by which noncoding RNAs regulate metabolic genes in Bacteroides, and how do these mechanisms fit within its interactions with the host and pathogens? To address these questions, the lab draws from a toolkit of RNA-seq-based approaches such as dual RNA-seq (Westermann et al. 2016 Nature; Stapels et al. 2018 Science), triple RNA-seq (Seelbinder et al. 2021 Cell Rep.), and advanced prokaryotic RNA-seq protocols (Prezza et al. 2020 RNA) and applies a suite of RNA biochemistry techniques (Ryan et al. 2020 Nat. Commun.; Santos et al. 2021 Cell Rep.).
2022-06-24
HIRI Würzburg
ERC-funded postdoctoral position in bacterial sRNA biology (f/m/d)
The Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) is offering an ERC-funded postdoctoral position in bacterial sRNA biology (f/m/d) in the Research Group “Host-Pathogen-Microbiota Interactions” (HOPI) under the direction of Jun. Prof. Dr. Alexander Westermann. The Westermann lab at HIRI is recruiting a postdoc to work on an innovative ERC-funded research project. The project is centered on endogenous RNA-mediated metabolism control mechanisms in a predominant microbiota species. The successful applicant will work with a dynamic team of scientists and will apply bacterial genetics, RNA biochemistry approaches, and functional assays to dissect the mechanism of antisense RNA-mediated gene expression control in the anaerobic commensal, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. Our intestinal tract offers an attractive environment for both beneficial and pathogenic bacteria. The beneficial bacteria of our microbiota feast on undigested foods and provide numerous health benefits. Enteric pathogens see this environment as an entry point for infection. Both groups influence each other, creating a tripartite interaction with us, the host. Understanding this interaction represents an emerging research area to combat infections poised to improve human health. Bacteroides are key commensals in these triangular interactions, as they produce diffusible intermediates as part of their metabolism that are utilized by pathogens and the host (Bornet & Westermann 2022 Trends Microbiol.). Bacteroides metabolism control has been a major focus, but the field has focused mostly on transcriptional regulation. Recent work from my group (Ryan et al. 2020 Nat. Commun.) and others (PMID: 27353652) suggested that Bacteroides employ cis-encoded antisense RNAs to regulate metabolic gene expression. However, the mechanism(s) by which these noncoding RNAs regulate their target genes in Bacteroides, and whether this depends on assisting RNA-binding proteins, remain elusive and will be addressed in the present project. In the past, the lab drew from a toolkit of genetics, RNA biochemistry techniques, RNA stability / translation assays and reporter systems to answer similar questions on bacterial regulatory RNAs (Westermann et al. 2016 Nature; Ryan et al. 2020 Nat. Commun.; Santos et al. 2021 Cell Rep.).
2022-06-22
HIRI Würzburg
Postdoc (f/m/d) within the ERC Funded Project T-FRAME
The Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) is offering a position as Postdoc (f/m/d) within the ERC Funded Project T-FRAME in the Research Group “Recoding Mechanisms in Infections” of Junior Professor Neva Caliskan. With her ERC-funded project "T-FRAME" Junior Professor Caliskan is investigating the relevance of the so-called frameshifting in eukaryotic cells during infections. The segments of certain genes that carry the code for proteins, can also contain RNA elements that can hinder the production of proteins. However, these obstacles do not only cause problems, but also hold opportunities for the cell to increase its coding capacity by using an “alternative reading grid” also known as programmed ribosome frameshifting (Riegger and Caliskan, Frontiers M.Bio., 2022). Frameshifting has been extensively studied in viruses such as coronaviruses and bacteria, but its regulation and mechanisms in eukaryotic cells remained puzzling. Caliskan lab aims to close this gap by combining interdisciplinary expertise ranging from cellular to single-molecule analysis of frameshifting molecular complexes (Zimmer and Kibe et al, Nature Comm. 2021, Hill, Pekarek et al. Nature Comm. 2021). Understanding the effects of frameshifting on infections and innate immunity will in the long run provide us with new tools for synthetic biology and new opportunities for RNA-centric antiviral drugs and immunotherapies.

Print Send per emailShare