Available: 10/15/20, Expires: 10/15/24
Project description and duties: The overall goal of the Sethi laboratory (http://sethilab.dana-farber.org/) is to combine clinical observations and patient-derived data with rigorous basic research to yield opportunities for translational advances. In particular, we are focused on better understanding gastrointestinal cancers with the hope that this knowledge will stimulate new ideas for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of these deadly cancers. Currently, the research projects in the lab fall under two categories: (1) investigate the therapeutic efficacy of DNA damage response inhibitors in gastric and esophageal adenocarcinomas and (2) define the mechanism underlying differentiation blocks in colorectal cancer. Each of these research themes is broken down into smaller projects led by postdoctoral fellows and/or graduate students. The goal is to assemble a team composed of trainees of different levels to maximize collaborative science. Depending on the student’s passion and needs of the laboratory, a project of mutual interest will be assigned.
Skills required: For the remote research opportunity, students should be familiar with basic concepts in cell and molecular biology. To maximize the ability of the student to learn from the remote experience, a basic knowledge of programming in R is preferred. The student will work with members of the laboratory to build on basic biology and computational skillsets. When students return to campus, hands-on wet lab research experience will be the goal. Student’s with experience in techniques in cell and molecular biology will be preferred, but all students will be considered regardless of experience. The most important factor is motivation to learn and commitment to the team.
Learning outcomes: Students will benefit in many ways when engaging the lab: (1) they will learn how to thinking critically and understanding how hypotheses are generated; (2) they will learn how to design careful and well-controlled experiments to test emergent hypotheses; (3) for remote work, students will learn how to apply computational tools to interrogate molecular data sets such as those generated from whole exome (DNA) sequencing, RNA-seq, single-cell RNA-seq, CHIP-seq, and ATAC-seq to answer specific questions and generate new relationships; (4) when students return to campus, they will learn laboratory techniques in cell and molecular biology; (5) career mentorship for residency and fellowship placement will also be part of the experience.
Nilay Seth is the primary mentor. Please visit http://sethilab.dana-farber.org/ to learn more about the laboratory. Please send a statement of interest and resume (nilay_sethi@dfci.harvard.edu)