General Description

The Kwon Laboratory at the Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, MA has an opening for a highly motivated postdoctoral fellow to study adaptive immune responses to vaginal microbiota and their role in shaping mucosal inflammation and women’s health outcomes, following up on recent studies published by our group in Cell, Immunity, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Nature Microbiology, and Cell Host and Microbe. State-of-the-art facilities are available within an exceptionally energetic research setting at the Ragon Institute. We are a mission-oriented group of highly motivated scientists from the fields of immunology, microbiology, virology, genetics, and technology development who perform translational research.

The successful candidate will lead projects aimed at identifying antigen-specific T cell responses, defining their functional consequences, and elucidating how microbial exposures shape mucosal immunity. The person hired will work under the supervision of Dr. Kwon conducting patient-oriented translational research utilizing large, well-characterized patient cohorts based in the US and sub-Saharan Africa to understand host-microbiota interactions and their impact on HIV, pregnancy, fertility, and cancer. Candidates will have ample opportunities to acquire and develop new skills, work closely with the PI and collaborators, and communicate results to the scientific community through conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications while working in a supportive, highly collaborative, and energetic environment. 

Job Duties:

Under the direction of the principal investigator, the applicant will independently carry out

activities performing research. 

Duties include:

• Design and execute experiments to characterize adaptive T cell responses to vaginal microbiota

• Perform TCR sequencing, cloning, and expression to define antigen specificity

• Map microbial epitopes recognized by T cells and assess functional responses

• Conduct immunologic assays including flow cytometry, ELISpot, cytokine profiling, and in vitro T cell assays

• Work with human mucosal samples, including tissue and cervicovaginal specimens

• Integrate findings with microbiome and clinical datasets

• Analyze and interpret experimental data and present findings internally and externally

• Maintain detailed documentation of experimental work

• Collaborate closely with interdisciplinary teams across immunology, microbiology, and computational biology

• Mentor students and technicians

• Maintain close communications with the PI regarding progress

• Write, edit, and submit manuscripts/abstracts detailing the results of the project

• Demonstrate integrity, excellence, accountability and teamwork in all interactions

Requirements