Postdoctoral Researcher

The Kadara Laboratory at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is seeking talented and highly motivated postdoctoral fellows to investigate the cellular and ecological mechanisms governing the earliest stages of lung cancer development and to identify new strategies for cancer prevention and interception. Our laboratory studies the evolution of lung adenocarcinoma from normal lung tissue through premalignancy and invasive cancer.

Areas of particular interest include injury-induced epithelial plasticity; KRT8-positive alveolar intermediate and progenitor cells; oncogenic KRAS signaling; inflammatory and immune microenvironments; tumor‑immune co‑evolution; and the contribution of the host microbiome to lung cancer pathogenesis. The laboratory combines human tissues with genetically engineered and carcinogen-associated mouse models, lineage tracing, organoid systems, preclinical intervention studies, and state‑of‑the‑art single‑cell and spatial profiling technologies.

Representative publications include Sinjab et al., Cancer Discovery (2021);
Rahal et al., Cancer Immunology Research (2024), Han et al., Nature (2024); and Peng et al., Cancer Cell (2026). These studies have defined the spatial and cellular architecture of early lung adenocarcinoma, characterized immune-cell states associated with disease evolution, identified KRT8-positive alveolar intermediate cells as potential precursors of lung adenocarcinoma, and uncovered inflammatory epithelial‑immune niches that may be targeted for early cancer interception.

The successful candidate will lead mechanistic studies examining how epithelial cell states, environmental or inflammatory injury, oncogenic signaling, and immune-cell niches interact to initiate and promote lung cancer. The fellow will also investigate how vulnerabilities arising during these early stages can be targeted through mechanism-based prevention and interception strategies.