The Research Group “Systems Medicine of the Extracellular Niche in Chronic Lung Diseases”, established within the HMGU as part of CPC and DZL from October 2015, focuses on mechanisms of tissue regeneration and the role of cell-matrix adhesions in stem cell differentiation. In particular, the group uses and develops quantitative mass spectrometry methods to characterize the compositional changes and the molecular interactions within the pulmonary extracellular niche (e.g. epithelial lining fluid and basement membrane) and their impact on the dynamics of cellular signaling pathways.
This Research Group is currently looking for a talented PhD Student and a Postdoc. See the announcements and flyers below.
PhD Student – Keywords: Epithelial Lining Fluid, Protein Biochemistry, Pre-clinical Target Validation, Epithelial Homeostasis and Differentiation, Bronchioalveolar lavage, Clinical Proteomics, Secretomics
Your project will aim at the functional characterization of epithelial lining fluid (ELF) proteins in maintenance of epithelial homeostasis and injury repair. The airway lumen is covered by the ELF into which epithelial cells and alveolar macrophages secrete proteins and peptides with a multitude of functions, including innate immunity, mucociliary clearance, and antioxidant defense. We recently characterized dynamic changes in ELF along a tissue repair progression timeline in the bleomycin induced lung injury mouse model (Schiller et al., 2015). The ELF of diseased human lungs may harbor a disease and progression specific combination of secreted proteins and can be sampled from lungs using bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), which is also a frequently used clinical procedure for diagnosis and monitoring of chronic lung diseases. We screened human ELF from insterstitial lung disease patients (unpublished) and identified markers of tissue repair in patients. In the course of your PhD project you will be involved in pre-clinical target validation of our candidate proteins with putative functions in tissue regeneration and homeostasis.
Download the job advertisement.
Postdoctoral Scientist – Keywords: Basement membrane composition and architecture, stem cell niche, lung development, injury and regeneration, proteomics
The postdoc should aim at establishing a functional understanding of the spatiotemporal variation of the composition of basement membrane niches along the distal airway tree. In particular, the impact of basement membrane biology on stem cell dynamics upon lung injury and repair shall be addressed. The project will encompass a variety of state of the art methods including immunofluorescence imaging, mass spectrometry driven proteomics and single cell expression analysis, in vivo injury mouse models, as well as in vitro organoid models.