Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Computational Biology

Cures Start Here.   At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, home to three Nobel laureates, interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists seek new and innovative ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases. Fred Hutch\u2019s pioneering work in bone marrow transplantation led to the development of immunotherapy, which harnesses the power of the immune system to treat cancer. An independent, nonprofit research institute based in Seattle, Fred Hutch houses the nation\u2019s first cancer prevention research program, as well as the clinical coordinating center of the Women\u2019s Health Initiative and the international headquarters of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network.   Careers Start Here

• We have an open postdoc position in the lab of Dr. Frederick (Erick) A. Matsen of at least two years duration with solid pay and great benefits
• The project is to learn about anti-HIV antibody development and coevolution using data coming from a unique HIV superinfection cohort for which the viral history has been carefully characterized
• There will be many opportunities to develop and deploy new methods in a team pushing the boundaries of Bayesian phylogenetic analysis
• We will work with collaborators to validate inferences using lab techniques
• The larger research group is highly collaborative, with deep expertise in virology, protein evolution, and structural/functional analysis
• We\u2019re a Python shop looking for someone who isn\u2019t afraid of large-scale data analysis and has high standards for organization and code clarity

This is a unique time, full of opportunity, to be working on B cell receptor (antibody) sequences. The field is awash with data, and methods haven\u2019t really caught up: there is still lots to do to develop methods that fully make use of the data but also scale to large data sets.

The Fred Hutch is also a unique place to be doing this work, with a convergence of many very strong research programs. This project is a collaborative endeavor between

• Julie Overbaugh\u2019s lab   brings decades of experience analyzing HIV infection and the corresponding immune response.
• Jesse Bloom\u2019s lab  does groundbreaking work understanding protein evolution at the pathogen-immune interface; they recently did deep mutational scanning on   HIV env , influenza   in the presence of antibody selection   and are gearing up to do more in HIV, including DMS on anti-HIV antibodies.
• Kelly Lee\u2019s lab   brings a full stack of cutting-edge technology to study virus/immune reactions from a structural perspective.
• My group   works to develop advanced Bayesian phylogenetic techniques and tools to understand antibody sequences.

(In passing, I also note that the   HIV Vaccine Trials Network   has its primary leadership here, and they are very interested in using B cell sequencing to understand vaccine response.)