Research Scientist

The Department of Pathology at the University of Virginia seeks a Research Scientist position in the laboratory of Dr. Hui Li. The broad areas of interest in Dr. Li's lab include gene regulation, abnormal splicing, developmental biology, evolutional biology and cancer.

Genes are considered the units of hereditary information, thus neither genes nor their encoded products are expected to mingle with each other unless in some disease situations. In cancer, a frequent mechanism that can produce gene fusions is chromosomal rearrangement. However, our work on RNA trans-splicing (Science 2008, Cancer Discovery 2013, NAR 2016, PNAS 2016) and cis-splicing between adjacent genes (cis-SAGe) (Cancer Discovery 2012, PLOS Genetics 2015) provide support for other mechanisms in generating fusion RNA at least in a few isolated cases.

With RNA-sequencing, we are identifying hundreds of thousands of chimeric RNA that exceeds our wildest imagination. Ongoing projects are using bioinformatics, evolution biology, and many traditional approaches to study the characteristics, the function, the mechanism and the functional implication of these fusions in cancer and normal physiology.

The successful candidate will have excellent organizational, written and verbal communication skills.

• Education:
  
  Doctoral degree
• Experience:
  
  None
• Licensure:
  None

Starting compensation - $68,400 annually

This is primarily a sedentary job involving extensive use of desktop computers. The job does occasionally require traveling some distance to attend meetings, and programs.

The University of Virginia is an equal opportunity employer. All interested persons are encouraged to apply, including veterans and individuals with disabilities. Learn more about UVA's commitment to non-discrimination and equal opportunity employment.