[3dem] Post-doctoral position available in the Akey Research Group

[Christopher W. Akey]

The School of Medicine is part of Boston University and is located on the
southeastern side of Boston. Our research group is located at the Center
for Advanced Biomedical Research in the Department of Physiology and
Biophysics.

We are seeking a suitable candidate to fill a post-doctoral position that
has become available, funded by an NIH RO1 grant on the structure and
function of human and Drosophila apoptosomes.

In this work, a wide range of biochemical and biophysical approaches will
be used to study assembly and procaspase activation by large cell death
platforms, known as apoptosomes. This work will use both electron
cryo-microscopy of single particles and X-ray crystallography to explore
structure-function relationships of these complexes.

For additional background information see these papers:

The holo-apoptosome: activation of procaspase-9 and interactions with
caspase-3.
Yuan S, Yu X, Asara JM, Heuser JE, Ludtke SJ, Akey CW.
Structure. 2011 Aug 10;19(8):1084-96.
PMID: 21827945

Structure of the Drosophila apoptosome at 6.9 A resolution.
Yuan S, Yu X, Topf M, Dorstyn L, Kumar S, Ludtke SJ, Akey CW.
Structure. 2011 Jan 12;19(1):128-40.
PMID: 21220123

Structure of an apoptosome-procaspase-9 CARD complex.
Yuan S, Yu X, Topf M, Ludtke SJ, Wang X, Akey CW.
Structure. 2010 May 12;18(5):571-83.
PMID: 20462491

Our Department is set-up for structural biology investigations with a well
equipped cryo-EM lab, centered on a TF-20 with a 4k x 4K Tietz camera and
software for semi-automated data collection, coupled with Oxford and Gatan
cryo-holders and ancillary equipment for this research, including a
cryo-CM 12 with 1k x 1k camera. In addition, we have an in-house Raxis-4
X-ray diffraction system for crystal screening and ready access to
beamlines at the NSLS synchrotron for data collection. Data processing
will be carried out on our Linux cluster with ~120 compute cores.

This position will be available starting June 1, 2012 and funding is
available for 3-4 years.  To apply, please email a copy of your CV, a
cover letter indicating your qualifications and addresses of 2-3
references to Dr. Christopher Akey (cakey at bu.edu).