Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Overview

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center is an independent, nonprofit organization providing adult cancer treatment and groundbreaking research focused on cancer and infectious diseases. Based in Seattle, Fred Hutch is the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in Washington.

With a track record of global leadership in bone marrow transplantation, HIV/AIDS prevention, immunotherapy, and COVID-19 vaccines, Fred Hutch has earned a reputation as one of the world's leading cancer, infectious disease, and biomedical research centers. Fred Hutch operates eight clinical care sites that provide medical oncology, infusion, radiation, proton therapy, and related services, and network affiliations with hospitals in five states. Together, our fully integrated research and clinical care teams seek to discover new cures to the world's deadliest diseases and make life beyond cancer a reality.

At Fred Hutch, we value collaboration, compassion, determination, excellence, innovation, integrity, and respect. These values are grounded in and expressed through the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our mission is directly tied to the humanity, dignity, and inherent value of each employee, patient, community member, and supporter. Our commitment to learning across our differences and similarities makes us stronger. We seek employees who bring different and innovative ways of seeing the world and solving problems. Fred Hutch is in pursuit of becoming an anti-racist organization. We are committed to ensuring that all candidates hired share our commitment to diversity, anti-racism, and inclusion.

A funded Postdoctoral Fellowship (full-time/fully in-person) is available immediately within The Laboratory for the Study of Metastatic Microenvironments, led by Cyrus Ghajar. The successful candidate will:

• Build computational algorithms to uncover clonal and phylogenetic relationships between primary breast tumors and their disseminated seeds. This will require innovating approaches to cross-analyze bulk primary tumor sequencing datasets with matched bone marrow single cell sequencing data.
• Innovate computational approaches to deeply analyze immune microenvironments within the breast and bone marrow, and uncover tumor antigen-specific populations within these tissues.
• Launch a new research endeavor focused entirely on the application of spatial transcriptomics to enumerate and define cellular microenvironments - or niches - within tissues. They will work closely with members of the Ghajar Laboratory to generate ideal tissue specimens and profile them using state-of-the-art approaches. They will innovate computational methods to analyze single cell and spatial transcriptomic data, and to visualize these data.
• Drive publications and funding applications showcasing this work.
• Be motivated to compete for fellowship funding.

The ideal candidate will have a PhD in bioinformatics, statistics, computational biology, genetics, data science, or a related field. They will have extensive experience programming in R and/or Python. They will apply this expertise to invent computational tools to analyze an array of tissue-scale, cellular, and subcellular features present in single cell and spatial transcriptomic data sets. They will be adept at displaying these data in an intuitive and artful manner. They will also generate theories and testable hypotheses based on these data, and guide follow-up studies to answer what we view as some of the most fundamentally important questions in cell biology.

This role will be 100% onsite at our Seattle South Lake Union campus.

Responsibilities

• Work with a first-in-class dataset to conduct integrative analysis of bulk and single cell tumor datasets, using genetic signatures to establish clonal relationships between the primary tumor and its disseminated seeds.
• Use these data to establish relationships between immune microenvironments and tumor cells within the breast tumor microenvironment and within distant sites.
• Analyze tissue scale spatial transcriptomic datasets spanning liver, brain, bone marrow, and other normal and disseminated tumor cell-bearing tissues. Develop custom models to characterize niches, niche constituents, and niche occupancy based on protein and transcript expression.
• Develop data visualization approaches to display single cell transcriptomic and spatial data thoughtfully and intuitively.
• Partner with lab mates to design the best experiments and conditions to generate data from, and to test hypotheses shaped by these data.
• Write manuscripts, presentations, and grant applications based on these findings.

Qualifications

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• PhD in bioinformatics, statistics, computational biology, genetics, data science, or a related field.
• Direct experience in computational analysis of large single cell sequencing-based molecular data sets. Direct experience might include phylogenetic analysis of evolution on a cellular scale, analysis of single cell RNA-seq data with multiple contrasts, development of custom data visualization approaches, analysis of single cell multi-ome data, integration of data across multiple modalities (e.g., epigenetic profiling and RNA-seq), and so forth.
• First author publications showcasing such work.
• Proficiency in R and/or Python.
• Demonstrated ability to generate visualizations that are accessible to a broad audience.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to learn new tools and content quickly and independently.
• Ability to work independently and in a team.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Some exposure to and analysis of high-dimensional spatial data sets.

A statement describing your commitment and contributions toward greater diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism in your career or that will be made through your work at Fred Hutch is requested of all finalists.

The annual base salary range for this position is from $67,728 to $140,000 and pay offered will be based on experience and qualifications.

This position may be eligible for relocation assistance. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center offers employees a comprehensive benefits package designed to enhance health, well-being, and financial security. Benefits include medical/vision, dental, flexible spending accounts, life, disability, retirement, family life support, employee assistance program, onsite health clinic, income-based child care subsidy, tuition reimbursement, paid vacation (22 days per year), paid sick leave (up to 30 calendar days per occurrence of a qualifying reason), paid holidays (13 days per year), and paid parental leave (up to 4 weeks).

Our Commitment to Diversity: We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) Employer. We are committed to cultivating a workplace in which diverse perspectives and experiences are welcomed and respected. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, ancestry, national origin, sex, age, disability (physical or mental), marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, political ideology, or membership in any other legally protected class. We are an Affirmative Action employer. We encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds to apply and desire priority referrals of protected veterans. If due to a disability you need assistance/and or a reasonable accommodation during the application or recruiting process, please send a request to Human Resources at or by calling 206-667-4700.