You will be investigating cytokine signaling pathways in macrophages, beyond the known JAK-STAT signaling pathways. Cytokines shape the macrophage’s phenotype, thereby affecting disease states. Puzzlingly, many cytokines with opposing functions, utilize highly similar JAK-STAT signaling cascades, leaving it unclear how cytokine-specific responses can occur.
The goal is to reveal novel, cytokine-specific factors regulating macrophage cytokine responses.
Your main tasks and responsibilities within this project are:
- Identify transcription factors that regulate macrophage cytokine responses using a natural genetic variation screen;
- Validate and functionally test the identified transcription factors by knockdown/knockout strategies on the cytokine responses of macrophages;
- Next to cell culture experiments, you will use and analyze state-of-the-art approaches such as RNA-sequencing and ChIP-sequencing analysis;
- Translate your findings to disease models;
- Align these findings with human disease.