[phenixbb] Post-doctoral positions at the NKI /Amsterdam to work on Autotaxin

Anastassis Perrakis a.perrakis at nki.nl
Wed Jan 19 02:35:17 PST 2011


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;jsessionid=D15B330C3E290F27688458F751F7FC11.d03t02

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

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