Impact of autophagy and nucleophagy deregulation in psoriasis

This is an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic graduate with an interest in autophagy and inflammation, but also with a strong background in skin biology as well as cell and molecular biology. Applicants should have at least an upper second class honours degree (or equivalent). This lab project will based at the Centre for Cell Biology and Cutaneous Research located at the Blizard Institute, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD), Whitechapel, London, to commence in October 2019.

Originally characterized as a hormonal and starvation response, it is now well established that autophagy has a much broader role in biology, including organelle remodelling, protein quality control, prevention of genotoxic stress, tumour suppression, pathogen elimination, regulation of immunity and inflammation, metabolism, and cellular survival. Autophagy is a self-degradative process vital for maintaining cellular homeostasis in response to stress. We have recently demonstrated the importance of autophagy in epidermal function, providing the first comprehensive profile of autophagy marker expression in developing epidermis [J Invest Dermatol. 2016; 136(7):1460-70].

Having showed that autophagy is constitutively active in the epidermal granular layer and that differentiating keratinocytes undergo a selective form of nuclear targeted autophagy (nucleophagy), the studentship will further investigate how inflammatory response could impact on the autophagy and nucleophagy in the skin. By using psoriatic epidermal keratinocytes and by developing new 3D organotypic model of “inflamed” skin this research project aims to identify more in detail the molecular signalling which impair epidermal autophagy pathway in a model of chronic inflammatory skin disease such as psoriasis. The study will benefit from clinical samples analysis of psoriatic patients for any validation. The studentship eventually aims to identify novel therapeutic approaches for skin conditions resulting from defects in cutaneous autophagy

Interviews will take place the week commencing 17-25 July 2019