J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI)
Post-Doctoral Fellow (Finance)
We seek a doctorate level scientist to develop the synthetic genomics technology called Genome Transplantation 2,3. This method installs a complete, typically synthetic, bacterial genome in a suitable bacterial recipient cell, so that the donated genome commandeers the recipient cell to produce a new cell with the genotype and phenotype of the donated genome. The JCVI developed this method over a decade ago, and it was critical in the production of the world's first cell with a chemically synthesized genome, JCVI-syn1.0 1, which is a strain of Mycoplasma mycoides. To date, genome transplantation has only been demonstrated for a small set of mycoplasma species 4. We plan to establish this method for use in non-mycoplasma species. Genome transplantation techniques for non-mycoplasmas would catalyze an expansion of the field of synthetic genomics. Efforts that constructed Escherichia coli strains with synthetic genomes had to exchange ~50 kb synthetic genome segments for their corresponding wild type segments in a time-consuming series of more than 50 iterative steps. Had genome transplantation been available to these projects, they could have moved much faster and other projects would have been funded if the method to boot up synthetic genomes was not so difficult. We will also develop a methodology to perform genome transplantation in microfluidic devices as opposed to the original test tube method.
This scientist will be located at the JCVI campus in Rockville, MD. They will be supervised by the JCVI's head of Synthetic Biology, John Glass, and collaborate closely with Elizabeth Strychalski, a physicist/synthetic biologist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD.
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J. Craig Venter Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic or status.