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About the Award

The Australian-American Fulbright Commission is pleased to offer a brand new postdoctoral opportunity with Washington State University (WSU). This award will enable postdoctoral researchers to undertake collaborative projects at WSU in pan-transcriptome assembly, annotation and analysis. The candidate for this opportunity should come from a Bioinformatics/Computational Biology background.

Pan-Transcriptome Assembly, Annotation and Analysis

The central dogma of molecular genetics – “DNA makes RNA makes protein” – clearly defines the role of transcriptome in bridging genome and phenome. To date, national and/or international collaborations have been initiated to assemble pan-genomes, pan-epigenomes and pan-chromatin architectures of agriculturally important animals. Pan-transcriptome, however, remain largely unexplored. No doubt, it is imperative for us to develop the farm animal pan-transcriptome resources because they are keys to identify functional elements hidden in the pan-genomes, pan-epigenomes and pan-chromatin architectures. This scholarship represents an opportunity for a talented postdoctoral fellow to help advance pan-transcriptome assembly, annotation and analysis.

The Opportunity

The scholar’s major responsibility is to develop, design and implement bioinformatic pipelines, computational models and artificial intelligence systems to understand how genome to phenome events are bridged by RNA variants (isoforms) and thus delineate the complex and multivariate relationships between animals’ genomes and phenomes. These factors – RNA macro-isoforms (length polymorphisms), micro-variants (RNA modification), expression abundance, time series, and tissue specificity should be taken into consideration to develop the pan transcriptome resources. The candidate should have strong experiences and skills in mathematics and/or computer sciences. She or he should demonstrate good understanding of biological problems and in-depth knowledge of computational methods for next-generation sequencing analysis.

Our aim is to encourage the scholar to lead formation of an international animal pan-transcriptome consortium and develop a white paper for publication in a high-impact journal. No doubt, there will be additional opportunities for the scholar to develop leadership skills, such as organizing skill development workshops, coordinating research activities, performing formal classroom teaching and training graduate and undergraduate students, for example. She or he will present our work at national and international conferences. In addition, she or he will prepare manuscripts for publication.

Dr. Zhihua Jiang’s Animal Genomics Laboratory is located in the Veterinary and Biomedical Research Building on the Washington State University Pullman campus. The building provides 77,250 net square feet of properly equipped and environmentally controlled, state-of-the-art biomedical research and support space for health science teaching and research programs. The Jiang laboratory, which encompasses more than 1,000 square feet, is located on the first floor of the building (VBR 160).

Eligibility

General criteria for all Fulbright Awards:

• Must be an Australian citizen.
• Must not be a dual citizen of the U.S.
• Must be residing in Australia at the time of application (exceptions may apply – please see link below).
• Must not have already commenced this degree or project in the U.S.
• Must not have held a J1 or J2 visa in the 24 months before program commences.
• Must hold an undergraduate degree.
• PhD must have been conferred in the past 5 years.*
• Must have a letter of invitation from proposed host institution.

* Applicants may be in their final year of their PhD research if applying for a postdoctoral award. PhD must be conferred before commencing program.

Award Benefits

• Monthly stipend for an individual based on the current approved MMR.
• Round-trip, economy class airfare directly to and from the scholar’s home city and the city of the host institution (capped at AUD$4,000).
• Settling-in allowance.
• A limited Accident and Sickness Program for Exchanges (ASPE) Health Benefits Plan, designed by the U.S. Department of State and administered by Seven Corners, Inc. Please note this plan is NOT an insurance policy.
• Orientation and networking opportunities.
• Support from the Commission prior to and during program.

Contact Information

Fulbright Team

Please contact the Fulbright scholarships team for any queries related to entitlements or application processes via: fulbright@fulbright.org.au

Washington State University

Institute of International Education (IIE)

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