Postdoctoral Fellow – Metabolic homeostasis

Location: Basel, Basel-city, Switzerland

Roche fosters diversity, equity and inclusion, representing the communities we serve. When dealing with healthcare on a global scale, diversity is an essential ingredient to success. We believe that inclusion is key to understanding people’s varied healthcare needs. Together, we embrace individuality and share a passion for exceptional care. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

The Position:

A healthier future. It’s what drives us to innovate. To continuously advance science and ensure everyone has access to the healthcare they need today and for generations to come. Creating a world where we all have more time with the people we love. That’s what makes us Roche.

You will join Roche’s Institute of Human Biology, an organization within pRED whose goal is to harness and advance the use of human model systems in drug discovery and development, as well as personalized medicine. Our interdisciplinary research bridges academic and pharmaceutical research, connecting biologists, engineers, and data scientists.

We partner and collaborate with leading scientific institutions worldwide to tackle grand challenges by assembling, funding, and leading interdisciplinary teams of experts to work on highly ambitious and complex scientific questions.

The Opportunity

We are offering an outstanding opportunity for a talented scientist to contribute to our mission to disrupt the traditional drug discovery process. You will be responsible for exploring novel mechanistic biology in the area of metabolic homeostasis. Of particular interest is the goal to understand the mechanism by which adipose tissue interacts with other tissues to mediate whole-body energy homeostasis, disruption of which results in diabetes. You will be mentored by the Group Lead of the Metabolic Homeostasis team at IHB. You will hence benefit from existing IHB know-how and innovative technologies in performing your translational research (microtechnologies and bioengineering methods, organoids expertise, phenotyping and phenoscaping capabilities). You will also be supported by a network of experts in pRED and Roche with clinical experience in the metabolic disease area as you explore patient-relevant scientific hypotheses.

• Independently drive a project to develop multicellular in vitro systems for modeling interactions between adipose tissue and sensory neurons.
• Collaborate with experts, including engineers, and data scientists within the IHB and pRED to build accurate models of sensory innervation of adipose tissue and its functional consequences.
• Plan, design, execute, and document experiments, analyze data and present results at lab meetings.
• Liaise with other IHB and pRED colleagues active in the field to find synergies and possibilities to collaborate.
• Supervise or train personnel and students when required.
• Gain knowledge of the pRED drug development process to understand where activities could be developed to therapeutically exploit sensory innervation of adipose tissue.

Who you are

You thrive in a dynamic, inclusive environment which gives you full accountability for your own contributions and development. You are resourceful and flexible in problem-solving and working in a collaborative and inclusive manner. Furthermore, you are dedicated to establishing a culture of mutual support, cross-training, continuous learning and self-organization to meet project and functional goals.

• Ph.D. degree in the area of adipose biology. You completed your Ph.D. studies not more than 4 years ago.
• Extensive experience with mammalian cell culture, including human cells, ideally including 3D culture models and organoids. Additional experience in designing and performing flow cytometry experiments is desired.
• Good knowledge of adipose physiology, architecture, adipogenesis, signaling, and gene expression.
• Proven track record (publications, patents) in conducting research, including designing, executing and interpreting experiments, as demonstrated by previous publications.
• Outstanding communication skills, strong passion and commitment to science and work well within a group.
• Ability to prioritize, see the big picture and nevertheless focus on details.

Preferred start date of the Postdoc is November 2024, or upon availability, for a duration of two years. Please clearly indicate your preferred starting date on your motivation letter. The position is in Basel.

To be considered your application needs to include:
A cover letter, a CV (including a list of relevant publications) and the names of three references.

Who we are

At Roche, more than 100,000 people across 100 countries are pushing back the frontiers of healthcare. Working together, we’ve become one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups. Our success is built on innovation, curiosity and diversity.

Basel is the headquarters of the Roche Group and one of its most important centres of pharmaceutical research. Over 10,700 employees from over 100 countries come together at our Basel/Kaiseraugst site, which is one of Roche`s largest sites. Read more.

Besides extensive development and training opportunities, we offer flexible working options, 18 weeks of maternity leave and 10 weeks of gender independent partnership leave. Our employees also benefit from multiple services on site such as child-care facilities, medical services, restaurants and cafeterias, as well as various employee events.

We believe in the power of diversity and inclusion, and strive to identify and create opportunities that enable all people to bring their unique selves to Roche.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.