"RESEARCH FELLOW"

Posted: 25-Mar-26

Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan

Categories: Staff/Administrative

Internal Number: 275440

Please submit your CV, cover letter, and minimum two letters of reference to spwatson@umich.edu

Brain cancers are one of our greatest challenges in cancer research, due to the immense complexity of their tumor microenvironments. While immunotherapies have shown great promise in other cancers, brain cancers are stubbornly resistant. 

The College of Pharmacy and the Watson Lab is recruiting an experimental postdoctoral fellow to help crack this problem using the latest approaches to in vitro modeling and spatial multi-omics to address this complexity, and find ways to reprogram the microenvironment for better responses to new immunotherapies.

The lab's primary focus is understanding how fibrosis and mechanical forces within the extracellular matrix impair treatment, and how they can be targeted for new therapeutics. The Fellow will lead experimental investigations using patient-derived organoids and assembloids, engineered ECM environments, and in vivo mouse models, working in close partnership with the lab's computational team to generate data-rich spatial multi-omics datasets that drive discovery. As part of the Bioinnovations in Brain Cancer initiative, the Fellow will be part of a broad collaborative environment to push state-of-the-art cancer research.

This is a founding position in a new lab with dedicated startup and international funding. As such, the Fellow will have the opportunity to shape the direction of this cutting-edge program at University of Michigan Ann Arbor.

• Design and execute experiments using patient-derived brain tumor organoids, assembloids, and bioengineered ECM models.
• Lead in vivo mouse model studies of the glioblastoma tumor microenvironment.
• Generate spatial proteomics and transcriptomics datasets in collaboration with the computational team.
• Contribute to manuscript preparation, grant writing, and presentation at national and international conferences.

• Experience with organoid or 3D culture systems strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with spatial omics or multiplexed imaging approaches a plus.