Doctoral candidate (M/F)

This Doctoral Candidate is being hired to join the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network " ZooCELL: Tracing the evolution of sensory cell types in animal diversity: multidisciplinary training in 3D cellular reconstruction, multimodal data analysis and science outreach" which involves labs from across Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and UK.
https://zoocell.eu/
She/He will be based in the Villefranche-sur-mer Developmental Biology Laboratory. https://lbdv.imev-mer.fr/
They will be co-supervised by Evelyn Houliston and Richard Copley, and registered with the “Complexité du Vivant” Graduate School at Sorbonne University.

Sensory cells around the aboral pole of the hydrozoan Clytia planula larva mediate responses to environmental cues, but their precise nature and function are unknown. The Doctoral Candidate will relate differences in gene transcription between Clytia planula sensory cell types to morphology, function and developmental history. S/he will characterise the structure and organisation of specific types of Clytia planula neural and neurosensory cell, defining their distinct morphological features by light microscopy techniques in combination with vEM (collaboration with other network fellows/EMBL). S/he will extend scRNA-seq datasets to find drivers and effectors of (i) mature cell type identity, (ii) morphology, and (iii) fate specification, determining the function of specific transcription factors identified by these comparisons, and of the corresponding cell types, using gene knockdown approaches. S/he will collaborate with the other network partners to compare cell type genotype/phenotype across species.