Postdoctoral Position in Cancer Stem Cell

University of Basel, Switzerland

Updated: 3 months ago

The Department of Biomedicine (DBM), a joint venture of the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel, brings together basic and clinical scientists to improve our understanding of health and disease. As a postdoctoral researcher, you will become part of a young team investigating cancer stem cells and the molecular mechanisms of their regulation, a promising and dynamic field of research where your contribution can make a real difference.

Scientific Background

Stem cells are rare populations of cells that in their primordial (i.e., ontological) significance serve as clonal founders of embryonic or adult somatic structures, while retaining a largely undifferentiated status themselves. Although adapted to tissue context, a recurrent feature of stem cells is the expression of pluripotency-inducing transcription factors, among which OCT4, KLF4, cMYC and SOX2. It is this set of four (or even less under certain conditions) that is indeed capable of reprogramming adult body cells into conditions of induced pluripotency. However, untimely or dysregulated expression of pluripotency factors is also related to the onset and progression of cancer.

The specific project you will be involved in aims to further elucidate the functionality of SOX2, whose molecular regulation is a long-standing interest of ours and which we have recently discovered is also actively involved in translation (i.e., in protein synthesis by ribosomes, see Schaefer et al., Cell Reports 2024). The unforeseen discovery of a translational role of cytosolic SOX2, distinct from its established significance as a pluripotency factor in the nucleus, holds great promise for advances in reprogramming technology and the fight against cancer.


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