Technician for fermentation of strains from fungal library and extraction of metabolites.

Fermentation of strains from fungal library and extraction of metabolites.

Natural products from microbial and plant sources are an essential source of novel drug leads. Fungal micro-organisms are a diverse and under-explored source for the discovery of novel bioactive natural products. Fungal natural products have diverse chemistries and bioactivities, exemplified by antibacterial penicillin, antifungal echinocandin, anticancer paclitaxel, immunosuppressant cyclosporin, and cholesterol-lowering medication lovastatin.

In the past, our lab has developed high-throughput methods for discovery of fungal natural products from LC-MS/MS and genomics data. We are seeking a technician who will be collecting LC-MS/MS data on a library of ~2000 fungal strains from diverse taxa. This dataset will serve as a training data for discovery of novel natural product drugs using machine learning algorithms. The technician will be reporting to Dr. Hosein Mohimani, and closely collaborating with Dr. Yi Tang.

Tasks:  Growing the strains from the collection, extracting metabolites, and analyzing the extracts by LC-MS/MS.

Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in chemistry, biochemistry, chemical or biomedical engineering with an interest in interdisciplinary work. Laboratory experience with fermentation and / or extraction is required. Experience with LC-MS/MS and prep-HPLC for isolation of natural products is a plus.

Email: hmohimani@g.ucla.edu