The Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irvine Medical Center seeks a young scientist to join the Mitochondrial Psychobiology Laboratory at NYSPI/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The successful applicant will support the development of our innovative psychedelic research program aiming to understand how the psychoactive compounds affect mitochondrial structure and functions, including bioenergetics to shape human psychophysiology.
Duties will include: 1) supporting the development of new studies, and analyzing existing data on the effects of serotonergic psychedelics on mitochondrial structure and function, sleep, behavior, and psychometric measures including cognition; 2) designing and performing in vitro studies of the effects of stress and psychedelics on mitochondrial structure and function in diverse cell types, to determine whether mitochondrial stress can induce the production of endogenous psychedelics. A successful applicant will have prior experience with data analysis applied to human clinical studies, coding experience in R and skills in bioinformatics (multi-omics), and advanced training in molecular biology, applied cell culture techniques and mitochondrial biology assays (i.e., seahorse). The applicant will receive additional training to further develop these skills as needed. This postdoctoral role focuses on psychedelic research at the intersection of mitochondrial biology, multi-omics analysis, and human psychophysiology within an academic medical research setting.
Job Function:
- Managing biobanked samples and developing sample management protocols.
- Contributing to the analysis of omic and multi-omic data from human and preclinical experiments
- Developing advanced integrated behavioral, psychometric, and multi-omic analysis skills and contributing to the integrated analysis of human clinical data and multi-omic data sets (i.e., DIABLO; MOFA/MOFA+; MEGENA/WGCNA).
- Designing, developing, and performing in vitro cell culture experiments including growing and counting cells, implementing various stress paradigms, collecting samples, measuring mitochondrial structure (microscopy) and function (seahorse, protein & mRNA assays, etc).
- Administering psychedelic compunds in vitro data
- Drafting and publishing manuscripts
- Contributing to and drafting original funding applications.
Qualifications
Minimum Skills and Education Required:
- PhD or equivalent in relevant field
- Postdoctoral training in clinical and/or laboratory sciences, biology, or related field of study.
- Experience with regulatory and operational protocols around clinical psychedelics research.
- Strong organizational skills and the ability to work well with others in a research team.
Preferred Qualificaions:
- Multi-omics analysis
- Biobank management
- Proficieny with R
Application Instructions
Please submit a CV plus a 1-page statement of research interest, inspiration, and career aspirations.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran
Pay Transparency Disclosure
The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to departmental budgets, qualifications, experience, education, licenses, specialty, and training. The above hiring range represents the University’s good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.