Are you an ambitious postdoctoral researcher who is interested in unraveling mechanisms of human neurological diseases? Then we are looking for you to strengthen our team!
You will be joining the research group
Evolutionary Neurogenomics dedicated to elucidate the impact of human genome evolution on human brain development and neurodevelopmental / neurodegenerative disorders. The Evolutionary Neurogenomics group is led by
Frank Jacobs and is one of the research groups of the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS), an interdisciplinary institute of the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam.
What are you going to do?The project you will be working on is funded by the MGH Collaborative Center for X-Linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism (CCXDP) and is aimed at elucidating the disease-mechanism of a progressive neurodegenerative disorder called X-linked Dystonia Parkinsonism (XDP). The disease leads to severe movement disorders exclusively affecting people with Filipino descent, particularly from the island of Panay where the mutation originally emerged.
Recently, the cause of the disease was identified by the CCXDP, providing evidence that the insertion of a retrotransposon called SVA into an intron of the essential gene TAF1 leads to misregulation of TAF1 gene expression. The mechanism remains unclear.
In this project, you will use the expertise of the Evolutionary Neurogenomics lab led by Frank Jacobs, to unravel the mechanism of SVA-mediated misregulation of TAF1. You will use XDP patient-derived organoids to systematically investigate the mechanism through which the XDP-SVA affects the TAF1 locus. This knowledge will lead to a better understanding on XDP disease progression and may ultimately provide the first crucial steps that will guide the XDP community to develop potential therapeutic strategies in the future.