Opportunities at the Tuberculosis Biomarker Research Group
School of Laboratory Medicine and
Medical Sciences; School of Life Sciences, UKZN Transdisciplinary Flagship program: APACHE (Afrocentric
Precision Approach to Control Health Epidemics)
2xPostdoctoral scholarships (2 years;
R200 000/year) and 2xPhD studentships (3 years; R100 000/year) available for
2019
Tuberculosis
(TB) is the leading cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide, with
one third of the global population infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and over one million deaths
annually from the disease. Diagnostic delays preventing timeous initiation of
anti-TB therapy contribute to increased TB transmission and high TB burdens
globally. For the past 100 years, Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) has been the
only licensed vaccine available to the public, but protects against TB only
during the first 10 years of life. Therefore, there is an urgent need to
develop more effective vaccines that will provide immune protection for
adolescent and adults, as well as a rapid point of care test that can be
applied at primary health care facilities. This project aims to design novel TB
vaccines and rapid diagnostics based on pathogen and host biomarkers identified
in our previous studies.
PROJECT 1: RECOMBINANT SUBUNIT TB VACCINES
DEVELOPMENT
This project will compare
novel recombinant subunit vaccines and TB protein vaccines for their capacity
to elicit protective humoral and T cell mediated immunity against Mtb
infection. The project will involve molecular biology (PCR, cloning, expression
and purification of recombinant subunit vaccines), immunology (analysis of in
vitro and mouse in vivo immune response, the characterization of humoral and T
cell immune response etc.
Requirements
Postdoctoral Scholarship: PhD in
Immunology/Biochemistry/Microbiology (or a closely-related field). Experience
in conducting in vivo studies in mouse models, preferably immune response
analysis, robust understanding of innate and adaptive immune system, a strong
molecular biology background (PCR, cloning and expression of recombinant
proteins etc.), bioinformatics. Experience in vaccinology will be an advantage.
PhD studentship: MSc in
Microbiology/Molecular Biology/Immunology/Biochemistry (or a closely-related
field). Experience in animal handling, recombinant DNA cloning and expression
of recombinant proteins, RT-PCR, and basic immunological techniques such as
multi-colour flow cytometry, ELISA, RT-PCR, cell sorting etc., will be an
advantage.
PROJECT 2: NOVEL HOST AND PATHOGEN BIOMARKER
DISCOVERY
High throughput next
generation RNA sequencing and global transcriptomics have led to better
understanding of TB pathogenesis, and present new opportunities in host and
pathogen biomarker discovery. Postdoctoral candidate will develop a RNA Seq
bioinformatics pipeline for the discovery of novel host and pathogen molecular
biomarker signatures using sets of previously generated data. These markers
will be validated using laboratory based functional studies.
Requirements
Postdoctoral Scholarship: PhD in Bioinformatics (or equivalent), understand and apply different
computing languages such as perl, python, C++, etc; evidence of quality
publications in peer reviewed journals. A background in immunology, molecular
biology and protein will be an advantage.
PhD studentship: MSc in Bioinformatics (or
equivalent) or MMedSc, understand and apply different computing languages.
Experience in wet lab based molecular and protein techniques, as well as TB and
cell culture will be an advantage.
Interested individuals
should send an application, which should contain a CV and a motivation letter
(max. 500 words) by 28 February 2019 to: Dr Nonto Mvubu: mvubun@ukzn.ac.za; Dr Thami Chiliza: chilizat@ukzn.ac.za; and Prof M. Pillay: pillayc@ukzn.ac.za
