Postdoctoral Fellow - Malignant Brain Tumor Research

Join the forefront of groundbreaking research at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, where we're changing lives and making a real difference in the fight against cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening illnesses. Our dedicated and compassionate faculty and staff are driven by a common mission: Contribute to innovative approaches in predicting, preventing, and curing diseases, shaping the future of medicine through cutting-edge research.

A Postdoctoral Fellowship opportunity is available in the lab of Dr. Behnam Badie. Malignant brain tumors urgently need therapies that can cross the blood-brain barrier, silence pathogenic signaling, and spare healthy tissue. Our lab is working in this direction, addressing the combination of oligonucleotide design, smart nanocarriers, ultra-high-throughput screening, and structural biophysics. We are looking for a postdoctoral scientist who will work at the crossover of chemistry, biology, and engineering to advance these technologies from concept to pre-clinical proof-of-concept.

For more information on Dr. Badie's lab please visit here.

As a successful candidate you will:

• Design ASOs, siRNAs, or aptamers that include chemical stabilizers and targeting motifs for delivery and persistence of activity in the brain-tumor microenvironment.
• Formulate and optimize liposomes and polymeric/hybrid nanoparticles for delivery across the BBB and release in vivo where targeted.
• Design and validate biochemical and cell-based readouts (including reporter lines) to quantify inhibition of trans-membrane proteins like RAGE and its co-receptors.
• Program our HTS robotics platform to interrogate small-molecule libraries; triage hits, coordinate SAR follow-up, and shepherd hit-to-lead evolutions.
• Express and purify soluble and membrane proteins from bacteria, insect (Sf9/Baculovirus) and mammalian (Expi293/CHO) systems; systematically troubleshoot folding, yield, and PTMs.
• Measure affinity/kinetics by SPR and ITC, solve structures by X-ray (or cryo-EM), and perform SDS-PAGE / Western blotting and complementary biophysics.
• Use phage, yeast, or mRNA display to isolate antibodies, VHHs, or alternative scaffolds; employ NGS to map enriched clones and advance leads into expression/characterization.
• Draft figures, manuscripts, and grant sections (NIH, DoD, foundations); present at conferences; coach graduate students and technicians, and help maintain a collaborative, deadline-driven lab culture.

Your qualifications should include:

• Ph.D. (or imminent completion) in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Chemical/Biomedical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences, or a closely related field
• Hands-on expertise in at least two of the following areas:

o Oligonucleotide therapeutics or nucleic-acid chemistry

o Nanoparticle / liposome formulation and characterization

o HTS assay development and robotic screening

o Recombinant protein expression in multiple hosts

o Biophysical methods (SPR, ITC, structural biology)

o Antibody or scaffold display technologies

• Track record of first-author publications in peer-reviewed journals
• Strong data-analysis skills (e.g., Prism, Python/R, HTS analytics) and clear scientific writing/presentation ability
• Genuine enthusiasm for mentoring and cross-disciplinary teamwork

City of Hope employees pay is based on the following criteria: work experience, qualifications, and work location.

City of Hope is an equal opportunity employer.

To learn more about our Comprehensive Benefits, please CLICK HERE.