Fesik Lab

Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Medicinal Chemistry

The Fesik Lab at Vanderbilt University seeks postdoctoral research fellows in medicinal chemistry to join our cancer drug discovery team. The Fesik Lab is a multidisciplinary team of structural biologists, medicinal chemists, and cell biologists committed to discovering and developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. We use fragment-based screening and structure-based design to discover small molecule inhibitors for important oncology targets.

Postdoctoral chemists in our group have the opportunity to learn and apply cutting edge approaches to drug design and synthesize analogs of hit molecules to improve binding affinity to a protein target and activity in cancer cells and then to optimize the pharmaceutical properties of these molecules.  The close collaborations between synthetic chemists, cancer biologists, structural biologists, and pharmacologists in our group will provide excellent training in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery.

The ideal candidate will have a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry with extensive training in synthetic methodology and/or total synthesis. Experience in parallel synthesis and compound library generation is a plus. If interested, please provide a cover letter describing your relevant experience, a curriculum vitae, and a short research summary of your synthetic work to stephen.fesik@vanderbilt.edu.

Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Cell and Cancer Biology

The Fesik Lab at Vanderbilt University invites applications for postdoctoral research fellows in cell and cancer biology to discover novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. The cell/cancer biology team supports these efforts by developing and performing assays for testing compounds, validating cancer targets, investigating compound mechanism of action, and profiling small molecules in defined cell lines and tumor types to inform clinical trial design.

The successful candidate will work closely within a multi-disciplinary team comprised of structural biologists, medicinal chemists, and cell/cancer biologists. Examples of the type of studies to be performed by the candidate include:
 

• Conduct cell-based and plate-based assays to enable compound progression.  Use established protocols and existing assays to measure inhibition of protein:protein interactions, growth inhibition, apoptosis, regulation of transcription, and inhibition of signaling pathways; assays include fluorescence- and luminescence-based formats, such as ELISA, In-cell Western, and FRET. Screen compounds in single concentration and dose-response schemes, analyze and report data. 
• Contribute to the design and development of novel assays to measure the functional consequences of inhibition of a number of diverse targets, especially those involved in apoptosis and epigenetics.
• Conduct research projects to understand the mechanism of action of novel targeted therapies identified in our group.  This may include screening cancer cell lines and tumors to understand the genetic predictors of response to these targeted agents.
• Participate in research projects to identify and validate new targets for cancer drug discovery.  Experiments will include target silencing by RNAi, target overexpression, and compound treatment of cancer cell lines.

Candidates should possess a recent Ph.D. in cancer biology, cell biology, genetics, or a closely-related discipline. Candidates should be skilled in basic cell biology techniques, including asceptic cell culture, Western blotting, RNAi technology, FACS. Candidates with expertise in the fields of apotosis regulation or epigenetics will receive special consideration.

If interested, please provide a cover letter describing your relevant experience, a curriculum vitae, and a short research summary of your work to stephen.fesik@vanderbilt.edu.