THE CHARITÉ – UNIVERSITÄTSMEDIZIN BERLIN
is a joint medical faculty, which serves both Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. As one of the largest university hospitals in Europe with an important history, it plays a leading role in research, teaching and clinical care. The Charité university hospital has also made a name for itself as a modern business with certifications in the medical, clinical and management fields.

SCIENTIST / POSTDOC

CC17 Klinik für Pädiatrie m.S. Onkologie und
Hämatologie

Charité Campus Virchow-Klinikum

Tumor relapses are among the most challenging clinical and fundamental problems in cancer. Current treatment protocols can often achieve complete clinical remission, but tumors still regularly relapse as treatment-resistant disease. Relapses may stem from additional genetic mutations or from switches in the cell phenotype. In some tumor types, tumor cells can adopt a primitive phenotype that is drug-resistant. Such cells may survive treatment and mediate relapses, but their role is enigmatic. Therapies specifically eradicating such primitive cells may prevent the emergence of relapses and improve clinical outcome. Your area of responsibility:
Neuroblastoma is a childhood tumor of the peripheral sympathetic lineage. Upon therapy, most high-stage neuroblastoma go in complete clinical remission, but the majority ultimately relapses as lethal disease. Recently it was found that neuroblastoma cells can adopt two phenotypes. In vitro, cells can transdifferentiate between a lineage committed- and an immature-phenotype. The immature cells are multi-drug resistant, but it is as yet enigmatic whether they play a role in vivo and are responsible for relapse development in neuroblastoma patients. This project will focus on the role of the immature cell type in relapse development in model systems and the prevalence of these cells in patients. Relapse development will be studied in mouse models of neuroblastoma and explore single cell RNAseq and targeted drugs to define the role of the immature cell type. Bioinformatic analyses play an important role in these studies. Neuroblastoma forms a spearpoint in the research at the Pediatric Oncology Research department of the Charité. This provides a state-of-the-art research environment within the inspiring city of Berlin. Scientific staff is given sufficient time to carry out their own scientific work in accordance with their employment relationship. Your profile: We search a post-doc with a doctoral degree and background in molecular biology and the ambition to realize a strong research line. The project studies a fundamental problem in cancer, but aims to integrate this with a search for clinical approaches that improve the fate of neuroblastoma patients. Initiative and good contactual skills to operate in a multidiciplinary environment are therefore important. The candidate should have experience with molecular analyses and cell culture and an interest in high throughput and bioinformatic analyses. The candidate should be fluent in English and preferably proficient in German. Applicants with a degree that was not obtained at a German or European higher education institution will have to submit a Statement of Comparability issued by the "Zentralstelle für ausländisches Bildungswesen" (Central Office for Foreign Education – ZAB, https://www.kmk.org/zab/central-office-for-foreign-education/) during the employment process in order to have their education properly acknowledged.