A postdoctoral position and two PhD positions in computational biophysics are open in the group of Yifat Miller at the Department of Chemistry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

The positions are available from November 1, 2015.

Deadline for application is September 30, 2015.

Highly motivated candidates who are interesting in using computational tools to understand the molecular mechanisms of aggregation of amyloids - proteins that are related to diseases such as, Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, and interested in using drug design to study potential drugs for these diseases are welcome to apply. The project is aimed at understanding the co-assembly mechanisms between various types of amyloid oligomers at the atomic resolution by using experiment-based coordinate sets of amyloids. Additional effort will be devoted to examine potential inhibitors for amyloid aggregation.

Examples of recent studies in our group:

1.      Atsmon-Raz Y, Miller Y. A Proposed Atomic Structure of the Self-Assembly of the Non-Amyloid-β Component of Human α-Synuclein As Derived by Computational Tools. J. Phys. Chem. B DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.5b03760 , 2015.

2.      Wineman-Fisher V, Atsmon-Raz Y, Miller Y. Orientations of residues along the β-arch of self-assembled amylin fibril-like structures lead to polymorphism. Biomacromolecules. 16:156-65, 2015.

3.      Raz Y, Adler J, Vogel A, Scheidt HA, Häupl T, Abel B, Huster D, Miller Y. The influence of the ΔK280 mutation and N- or C-terminal extensions on the structure, dynamics, and fibril morphology of the tau R2 repeat. Phys Chem Chem Phys. 16:7710-7, 2014.

4.      Raz Y, Miller Y. Interactions between Aβ and mutated Tau lead to polymorphism and induce aggregation of Aβ-mutated tau oligomeric complexes. PLoS One. 12;8(8):e73303, 2013.

Candidates with excellent molecular modeling skills (at least in one of the following packages: Schrodinger, Discovery studio, Material studio), experience in molecular and chemical dynamics simulations (GROMACS, NAMD, AMBER and CHARMM) and other docking tools (such as Autodock) are encouraged to apply. The working environment will be in Linux.

The postdoc position is initially for 2 years and can be extended to up to 4 years. The PhD positions are up to 4 years each. Both U.S. and other International candidates are encouraged to apply. Applications should include CV, a brief statement of research interests, and names and addresses of three referees who may be contacted.