Dear all, Post-doctoral positions are available in the Netherlands Cancer Institute in the group of Tassos Perrakis (http://xtal.nki.nl). Our group, together with that of Wouter Moolenaar and of Huib Ovaa, have a long-standing interest and lively collaboration in the function and structure of Autotaxin (ATX), a human enzyme that produces the well-established lipid mediator LPA. ATX has a very promising potential as a drug target. Together also with our collaborators at Pfizer and at Kentucky (Andrew Morris) we have recently published the structure of Autotaxin alone and in complex with our favorite inhibitor, as well as data that argue for an interaction of ATX with integrins. Structure: http://www.nature.com/nsmb/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nsmb.1980.html Crystals (good fun!): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935246/?tool=pubmed Our chemistry collaborators (Ovaa group at the NKI) have also recently published data on potent inhibitors that act in vivo, as well as an activity-based probe. Best Inhibitor: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2867685/?tool=pubmed Inhibitor design: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jm1005012 Activity based probe: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cbic.201000349/abstract;jsessioni... We are looking for highly motivated post-doctoral scientists to work on projects related to the function of Autotaxin, aiming to understand how Autotaxin activity regulates the production of LPA and how we can design more potent inhibitors and activity based probes. The project includes protein and mutant production, crystallographic studies and/ or cell biology analysis, and is funded by the KWF (Netherlands Cancer Fund) and the NWO (Netherlands Science Organization). The Netherlands Cancer Institute (http://www.nki.nl) is a center of excellence with a high standard of biological research and an interactive international atmosphere. It is located in Amsterdam, with all its cultural amenities, close to Schiphol airport. You will join a lively team, closely associated with that of Titia Sixma in the Department of Biochemistry and next to the NKI Protein facility. http://xtal.nki.nl/ http://proteinfacility.nki.nl/ The research teams at B8 are closely associated and have an interest in structural studies coupled to functional analysis, combined with activities in method development for structural biology. Our department also hosts the newly established "Protein Facility" with equipment that includes high throughput crystallization and automated crystal visualization robotics both for nano-drop and Fluidigm micro- fluidics experiments, an X-ray facility (with Micro-star Ultra source from Bruker and a MarDTB), Biacore surface plasmon resonance, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), static light scattering (MALLS) , Thermofluor, an automated protein expression testing platform, a mass-spectrometry unit, as well as facilities to express protein in E.coli, insect and mammalian cells. We are looking for enthusiastic researchers, which could have experience in protein crystallography and/or molecular biology and/or biochemistry and/or cell biology. Applicants should send an e-mail including a formal CV, a very short motivation letter for why they want to work on this project, and include the names of three referees, and send it to me. Tassos