Postdoctoral Associate - Developmental Programming of Metabolic Disease

Job Description:

The Karst laboratory in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Florida College of Medicine is seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral associate to join a newly funded NIH R project investigating how the early-life environment programs long-term metabolic health.

Our laboratory recently discovered that maternal bile acids delivered during lactation act as developmental signals that regulate neonatal growth through the bile acid receptor TGR5. Remarkably, transient manipulation of this pathway during lactation has lasting consequences: offspring exposed to reduced maternal milk bile acids are protected from diet-induced obesity, insulin resistance, hyperinsulinemia, and fatty liver in adulthood.

The successful candidate will investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this developmental programming. Current studies focus on how bile acid signaling during early postnatal life establishes adipose tissue architecture and function, including effects on adipocyte progenitor populations and their developmental trajectories. Approaches will include mouse models, flow cytometry and cell sorting, lineage tracing, metabolic phenotyping, and single-cell genomic and epigenomic approaches.

This is a new and rapidly developing research direction in the laboratory, providing substantial opportunity for the successful candidate to contribute intellectually to the project, develop independent questions, and shape its future direction.

We are looking for a scientist who is curious, rigorous, collaborative, and interested in understanding how transient exposures during critical developmental windows can produce lifelong changes in physiology and disease susceptibility.

Expected Salary:

$, - $, and is commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Required Qualifications:

PhD, MD/PhD, or equivalent doctoral degree in a relevant biomedical discipline.

Preferred:

Candidates should have a strong background in biomedical or biological sciences and demonstrated experience conducting rigorous, hypothesis-driven research. Preferred applicants will have experience with molecular, cellular, or in vivo experimental approaches relevant to the project.