About City of Hope

City of Hope is an independent biomedical research and treatment organization for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases.

Founded in 1913, City of Hope is a leader in bone marrow transplantation and immunotherapy such as CAR T cell therapy. City of Hope’s translational research and personalized treatment protocols advance care throughout the world. Human synthetic insulin, monoclonal antibodies and numerous breakthrough cancer drugs are based on technology developed at the institution.

A National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center and a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, City of Hope is ranked among the nation’s “Best Hospitals” in cancer by U.S. News & World Report and received Magnet Recognition from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Its main campus is located near Los Angeles, with additional locations throughout Southern California and in Arizona.

City of Hope’s commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

We believe diversity, equity and inclusion is key in serving our mission to provide compassionate patient care, drive innovative discovery, and advance vital education focused on eliminating cancer and diabetes in all of our communities. Our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ensures we bring the full range of skills, perspectives, cultural backgrounds and experiences to our work -- and that our teams align with the people we serve in order to build trust and understanding. We are dedicated to fostering a community that embraces diversity - in ideas, backgrounds and perspectives; this is reflected in our work and represented in our people.

Position Summary

We are seeking a talented and motivated Postdoctoral Fellow within the multidisciplinary research team headed by Drs. Nagarajan Vaidehi, Andrei S. Rodin, and Sergio Branciamore at the Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine (chaired by Dr. Vaidehi) at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope. Our research group comprises computational biologists, computational chemists, and bioinformaticians, with a notable record of productivity and publishing in high-impact journals.

Our team’s research is focused on G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) --- some of the most important and scrutinized drug targets, largely because of their direct and broad involvement in human physiological processes, and their pharmacological malleability. The primary goal of this project is to analyze GPCRs and their complexes with several G-proteins in order to uncover the spatiotemporal determinants of G protein coupling by developing an innovative toolkit combining Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations with system biology approaches such as Bayesian Network (BN) modeling. Using this toolkit we intend to identify (i) the time-correlated concerted motions in residue clusters that are critical to GPCR activation, (ii) residue pairs involved in allosteric communication from the ligand binding site to the G protein coupling site, and (iii) residue pairs in the GPCR:G protein interfaces that contribute to the G protein coupling strength and selectivity.

Key Responsibilities include:

• Development and application of novel computational systems biology algorithms, methods and software in the context GPCRs and G-proteins MD data.
• This is a highly interdisciplinary research project, and so interaction with basic biologists, chemists, biochemists, statisticians, bioinformaticians and computer/data scientists at City of Hope is encouraged and will be expected.

Basic education, experience and skills required for consideration:

• PhD in computational biology, bioinformatics, computer science, data science, mathematics, statistics, computational chemistry, physics or equivalent.
• Hands-on and documented experience in computational biology algorithm development and coding.

Additional Information:

• For more information on Drs. Andrei S. Rodin or Sergio Branciamore’s research, please visit: https://www.cityofhope.org/andrei-rodin and https://www.cityofhope.org/sergio-branciamore.
• As a condition of employment, City of Hope requires staff to comply with all state and federal vaccination mandates.