About Us: Positions Open

Undergraduate students
The laboratory at any given times hosts 3-5 undergraduate students who work with senior members of the laboratory on molecular and cell biological projects. The work involves tissue culture, Western blotting, Northern blotting, microarrays, vector construction, computational work, and general laboratory duties.

Rotating Graduate Student
Rotating Students, depending on their prior experience, will closely collaborate with a senior member of the laboratory or work independently. A project is in each case developed that allows hands-on work in molecular biology, biology and molecular biology. The students are exposed to all major techniques in the laboratory such as construction of gene expression vectors using recombinant lentiviruses, tissue engineering for artificial human skin, esophagus, and vessels, stem cell differentiation from human embryonic cells, bone marrow skin, and esophagus, microarrays, and bioinformatics.
Examples of projects:

• Construction of lentiviral vector for growth factors to induce transformed phenotype for melanocytes in organotypic cultures of human skin
• Differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into multi-potent progenitor cells and the role of Notch in maintenance of stem cell properties
• Differentiation of human melanoma stem cells into adipocytes and the role of integrin alpha 2 signaling
• Oncogene cooperation for melanocyte transformation using BRAFV600E and shRNA for p53
• Induction of apoptosis in metastatic melanoma cells with a specific GSK3ß antagonist

Graduate Students
Projects for graduate students are generally developed during their rotation. The graduate students work independently and their research is progressing through close communication with all members of the laboratory. Graduate students usually also have collaborative projects with other members of the laboratory. They review manuscripts and grants, write overviews for journals and are trained to present their work in seminar and at meetings. Graduate students can draw on the technical support staff in the laboratory for their own work. For major research directions, see the Research Project section.

Postdocs
Projects for postdocs are developed during their first months in the laboratory. Due to the broad scientific orientation in the laboratory, postdocs are generally free to choose their own projects. They work independently and have, depending on their experience, technical support. Postdocs routinely review manuscripts and occasionally grants. They make presentations at internal seminars, such as lab and journal club meetings, and at national and international meetings. Postdocs are expected to mature into independently working and planning investigators, who also develop their own collaborations within the laboratory and with scientists outside of the laboratory.