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Institut Curie Research Center is a major player in the research and fight against cancer. It consists of a hospital group and a research center of more than 1000 employees with a strong international objective. The Research Center aims to develop basic research and use the knowledge produced to improve the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics of cancers as part of the continuum between basic research and innovation serving the laboratories.

Team:
Stress and Cancer - Director: Fatima Mechta-Grigoriou
Computational Biology - Director: Hervé Isambert

Project funded by the European Commission, in the context of the Horizon Europe program, Mission Cancer 2023.

Title: Assessing the role of intratumoral microbiota in therapy responses using patient-derived tumor-on-chip

Resistance to therapies is a major challenge in oncology. Recent research suggests that intratumoral microbiota may contribute to anti-cancer drug resistance, particularly to immunotherapies. However, experimental approaches to address the role of microbiota in human cancers are lacking. Project ARTURO will tackle this problem by using an innovative state-of-the-art 3D tumor-on-chip (ToC) model, as part of the emerging field of Micro-Physiological Systems (MPS). The role of patient-derived bacteria, and of their postbiotics and released extra-cellular vesicles, in tumor ecosystem behaviors and drug responses, will be deciphered by integrating clinical data, omics analysis, and novel ToC-based information (by live imaging and single-cell transcriptomics). The development of advanced computational methods to extract ToC-based information constitutes a major force and innovation in the field, with high potential to accelerate future applications of ToC technology in clinics. The focus will be on two frequent poorly-understood cancer subtypes: non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and invasive lobular breast cancer (ILC).

This interdisciplinary and international project (France, Italy, Portugal), coordinated by Maria Carla Parrini, will be developed as a collaboration between Institut Curie, Institut Pierre-Gilles de Gennes for microfluidics, Bichat hospital in Paris, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa in Porto, University of Tor Vergata in Rome, and University of Humanitas in Milan.

Responsibilities:

1. Assessing personalized responses to anti-PD-1 treatment using patient-derived lung tumor-on-chip.
2. CausalXtract: a flexible pipeline to extract causal effects from live-cell time-lapse imaging data.
3. Deciphering the spatial landscape and plasticity of immunosuppressive fibroblasts in breast cancer.

Training and Skills Required:

We are seeking a Bioinformatician at the pre-doctoral or post-doctoral level with:

• A keen interest in analyzing complex heterogeneous biological data.
• Prior experience in the analysis of sequencing data (RNA-Seq from bulk, single-cell, and/or spatial transcriptomics).
• Competence in handling high-dimensional -omics data.
• Proficiency in high-level languages like Python or R and in good coding practices.
• Image analysis skills (this would be a plus).
• The development of a PhD project on the subject is an open possibility.

Abilities:

• Autonomy
• Organizational capacity
• Team spirit
• Adaptability to multidisciplinarity
• Fluency in English

All our opportunities are open to people with disabilities.

Contract Information:

Type of Contract: Fixed-term contract
Duration: 3 years
Working Time: Full time
Remuneration: According to the current grids
Benefits: Collective catering, reimbursement of transportation fees up to 70%, supplementary health insurance

Location of the Position: Institut Curie, 23 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris

Please send your CV, motivation letter, and at least 2 reference letters.

Institut Curie is an inclusive, equal opportunity employer and is dedicated to the highest standards of research integrity.