Dear Colleague
I would be grateful if you could bring the following notice to anyone who
may be interested.
Thanks
Mark Blaxter
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
in Edinburgh
The Nematode EST Project
Parasitic nematodes infect humans, animals and plants. They cause
significant disease, morbidity and mortality, and are economically very
damaging to the agricultural economies of developed and developing
countries.
The genome of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been sequenced. About
40% of the identified genes cannot be identified by database search and
appear to be C. elegans specific. Analysis of expressed sequence tags or
ESTs of the human parasite Brugia malayi shows that many of these novel
genes may in fact be nematode-specific. We suggest that work on other
economically important nematodes can benefit directly from the C. elegans
genome project and that full understanding of the C. elegans genome may
only be achieved by comparison to other nematodes.
We have been funded by the Wellcome Trust to generate ~20,000 ESTs each
from five additional nematode species selected on the basis of their
medical, economic and research importance (see
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~mbx/small_genomes.html for more details). We are
seeking a qualified molecular biologist with experience of cDNA library
construction, and possibly also genomics or related disciplines. A
familiarity with UNIX-based biocomputing will be an advantage. The
appointee will be involved in cDNA library construction, clone selection
and extensive sequence analysis. The bulk of the sequencing will be carried
out in collaboration with the Sanger Centre, Cambridge. The post is for 24
months and is available immediately.
A parallel project is being carried out in the USA under the direction of
Dr. Jim McCarter (Washington University, St. Louis), and our programs are
designed to dovetail closely.
For background to the research please see the world wide web at
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~mbx/small_genomes.html.
Also of relevance are
Blaxter, M. L. (1998). Caenorhabditis elegans is a nematode. Science 282,
2041-2046
Blaxter, M. L., et al (1999). Parasitic helminth genomics. Parasitology
118, S39-S51
Blaxter, M. L., et al (1996). Genes expressed in Brugia malayi infective
third stage larvae. Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology 77, 77-96
Burglin, T., Lobos, E. & Blaxter, M. L. (1998). Caenorhabditis elegans as a
model for parasitic nematodes. International Journal for Parasitology 28,
395-411
Enquiries to Dr Mark Blaxter by 12/04/00
email: Mark.Blaxter at ed.ac.uk
tel. 0131 650 6760
Further particulars including details of the application procedure should
be obtained from the Personnel Department, The University of Edinburgh,
9-16 Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1HT or Tel: 0131-650-2511 (24 hour
answering service). Please quote ref: 306053WW.
posted to email 20/03/00
_________________________________________________
Dr. Mark Blaxter email Mark.Blaxter at ed.ac.uk
Institute of Cell, Animal and Population Biology
Ashworth laboratories, Room 311
King's Buildings, University of Edinburgh,
West Mains Road, EDINBURGH EH9 3JT, UK
phone: (+44) 131 650 6760 Fax :...650 5450
see http://www.ed.ac.uk/~mbx/blaxlab.html
~ may all beings be happy ~
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