The Luker laboratory focuses on molecular imaging of chemokine receptor signaling in cancer and translating discoveries to clinical medicine. Our projects focus on multi-scale optical imaging studies (bioluminescence, confocal and two photon microscopy) ranging from cell-based assays to living mice. These studies quantify dynamics of intracellular signaling and investigate tumor-stromal interactions in primary and metastatic breast cancer. Research will work at the interface of engineering and cancer biology, including molecular biology, cell culture, quantitative image acquisition and analysis, and computational modeling to develop and validate new imaging reporters for chemokine signaling in populations of cells and at single cell resolution.
We are looking for students who are interested in imaging studies in mice (whole animal bioluminescence and intravital microscopy) and/or working with mouse models, students who want to work on biochemistry and cell biology studies (western blots, cell culture, DNA work for reporter construction, bioluminescence and fluorescence imaging of cells), as well as students who are interested in optical imaging, including confocal and two-photon microscopy in cells.
Students are expected to volunteer for the first semester as we train them into the lab. After a successful first semester, students will be paid hourly. Students may also participate in our laboratory for university research credit. We are looking for motivated, team-oriented students who are prepared to make at least a 2-year commitment to our laboratory. Students must be able to start by October, and are expected to fulfill a weekly commitment of at least 15-20 hours. We encourage applications from students who would like to spend a gap year doing research. For those students interested, we require that you have taken or are concurrently enrolled in a Biochemistry course, so that the tasks you may be required to perform are not unfamiliar.
If you are interested in this position, please apply at http://lukerlab.rad.med.umich.edu/?page_id=13.
