Jobs

A computational postdoctoral position is available in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory Schwartz to study the role of cellular heterogeneity in cancer. The laboratory is located within the heart of the Discovery District, at the intersection of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, the University of Toronto, and MaRS, the center of a rich network of scientists and clinicians.

The laboratory studies the contribution of cellular heterogeneity to therapeutic response and cancer evolution. Towards this goal, the laboratory develops novel multi-omic and single-cell computational methods to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment through precision medicine. Notably, work from researchers in the laboratory include new methods for integration of transcriptomics and proteomics data to identify novel biomarkers across cancer subtypes, mutation detection tools characterizing new classes of internal tandem duplications, and clustering and visualization algorithms for single-cell transcriptomics and epigenomics. For more information on the types of tools we will develop, please visit https://schwartzlab-methods.github.io/.

Join “The Laboratory for RNA-Based Lifeforms” in University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre. Together with Dr. Artem Babaian the work will develop the state of the art for the detection and sequence analysis of RNA viruses and virus-like agents.

Building upon the Serratus project (www.serratus.io) we will explore the far limits of Earth’s Virome. Briefly, we developed an open-souce AWS-cloud backed computing architecture to analyze 5.7 million sequencing datasets (10.2 petabases) and discover >130,000 novel RNA viruses (only 15,000 were known previously)… in only 11 days. Learn more in our first Nature paper, or watch our ISMB22 talk, “Serratus: Hacking Earth’s Virome”.

We have a very collaborative and fast-paced research environment with international laboratories. Our work aims to also create free and open data resources to catalyze the field of virology globally.

Developing effective targeted and rational therapies against cancer cells is a challenging task given the substantial variations in molecular and cellular landscapes between and within tumors. Single-cell profiling approaches have advanced our understanding of the extent of cellular diversity in tumor ecosystem, and its role in immune evasion and tumor progression. A full-resolution understanding of these interactions and functional inter-dependencies between tumor cells and stromal constituents in tumor microenvironment (TME) will help uncover mechanisms that underlie immune evasion and therapy resistance in tumors, and will open new avenues for therapeutic innovations. Toward this goal, we dissect functional heterogeneity among cancer and stromal cells by investigating diversity in active gene expression patterns using single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq). We also leverage the power of in situ spatial transcriptome and proteome profiling to elucidate cellular organization within tissues. This is critical for understanding the complex interplay between diverse cell types within tumors. By integrating the scRNA-seq data with spatial transcriptome profiles we aim to identify potential interactions and cellular inter-dependencies that fuel tumor progression and therapy resistance.

This research program is built on joint-forces from expert clinicians and scientists at McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), McGill Genome Centre (MGC) and Goodman Cancer Institute (GCI) to create a trans-disciplinary research program that leverages the expertise in genomics, computational science and statistics, cancer biology, histopathology, and cutting-edge tumor models to address the aforementioned unmet needs in order to improve patient survival and disease outcomes.

The Cardiology and Critical Care Research Program (C₃RP) at the Robarts Research Institute is located on the Western University campus and is connected to the London Health Sciences Center (LHSC). Under the supervision of two principal investigators (Dr. Aleks Leligdowicz and Dr. Mark Chandy), the laboratory employs novel multi-“omic” techniques to study biological samples from patients to understand disease mechanisms of early infection during critical illness and cardiovascular disease.

The main pillars of research are: (1)  the influence of innate and adaptive immune regulation and endothelial injury on outcomes in critical illness, and (2) the impact of environmental factors on the development of cardiovascular disease using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). Advanced cell culture and gene editing in conjunction with imaging techniques (flow cytometry, microscopy), functional biological assays, and RNA-sequencing are used to address these research goals.

Our lab is seeking a talented and highly motivated postdoctoral associate with expertise in large-scale statistical analyses of clinical data and their integration with complex biological studies. Biological data types include RNA-Sequencing, cell imaging (flow cytometry, microscopy), proteomics, and clinical trial analysis.

The successful candidate will interact with local, national, and international experts in clinical bioinformatics, contribute to manuscript and grant preparation, and engage in supporting our research trainees.