Dallas Jobs - December 2021

University of Texas at Arlington | https://uta.peopleadmin.com/postings/16133 | Dallas/Fort Worth ONSITE | $70k/year | Postdoctoral Fellow at Intersection of ML/Cancer Immunology

The Luber Lab, located in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the Multi-Interprofessional Center for Health Informatics (MICHI), and the Department of Bioengineering in the College of Engineering and the Weidanz Lab, located in the Department of Kinesiology in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation at The University of Texas at Arlington are jointly recruiting a postdoctoral fellow with experience in either immunology, microbiology, or bioinformatics to work on machine learning guided design of novel cancer immunotherapies. The position will have both wet lab and dry lab components, and the successful candidate will be trained in whichever they lack experience in.

Dr. Jon Weidanz’s lab studies tumor-specific peptides presented by the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system for use as potential targets for immunotherapy. He has developed methods to discover antibodies that recognize specific peptide/HLA complexes called T-cell receptor mimicking (TCRm) antibodies. These molecules share the binding selectivity traits of T-cell receptors while retaining the positive attributes of antibodies. TCRms are highly valued as research tools, and Dr. Weidanz has used them extensively to study antigen presentation in tumor cells. By using syngeneic tumor models that include A20, CT26, MC38 and Renca cancer cell lines, the candidate will work on experimentally validating microbiome derived augmentations of cancer immunotherapies whose design will be guided by machine learning algorithms the candidate will develop with Dr. Luber.

The overarching focus of the Dr. Jacob Luber’s lab is building computational tools and frameworks that at massive scale allow for cancer imaging data to be 1) contextualized in the oncology clinic to improve patient outcomes and 2) leveraged at the bench to augment drug discovery efforts. The lab also focuses on developing computational and statistical methods for handling high throughput `omics data such as single cell transcriptomics/spatial transcriptomics (10X Visium & Chromium) and spatial proteomics (CODEX). For developing computational methods, the applicant will have priority access to 8 state of the art NVIDIA DGX A100 GPUs owned by the lab.

In addition to his academic lab, Dr. Weidanz is the Associate Vice President for Research at The University of Texas at Arlington, coordinates entrepreneurial activities in the life sciences university-wide, and was the co-founder and chief scientific officer of a startup company recently acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim. Dr. Weidanz will also provide mentorship to the successful candidate on commercializing science and entrepreneurship.

Applicants should have a doctorate in biological or biomedical sciences with experience in either immunology, cancer biology, or microbiology or a computational doctorate. Candidates with a strong publication record will be preferentially considered. The salary for this position is $70,000 per year and includes a generous benefits package.