Lawson Lab, Department of Dermatology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The Lawson Lab will be moving to the Department of Dermatology at University of Wisconsin, Madison in January 2027 and we will have multiple openings for postdoctoral research associates with projects focused on vascular anomalies. These and other projects can be tailored to candidate interests as warranted.

Modeling vascular anomalies in human iPSCs. The candidate will generate and characterize human iPSC lines bearing conditional mutations associated with vascular anomalies in human patients. Primary focus will be on known activating mutations (e.g. GNAQ , MEK, PIK3CA, RAS), and loss of function mutations (e.g. RASA1 and EPHB4). Together with the PI, Candidate will design and implement targeting strategies to establish genetically modified iPSC lines for conditional activation or deletion, followed by assessment of endothelial cell differentiation and morphogenesis. These efforts will leverage campus resources including the UW Human Stem Cell Core and WiCell. Proposed studies include collaborative work with groups in UW Dermatology to apply organ-on-a-chip models for assessing tissue-level phenotypes. An emphasis will be on comparative “omics” studies to identify commonly affected pathways among candidate variants. Subsequent studies will be informed by ongoing Lawson Lab efforts to define cell-of-origin in human vascular anomaly lesions with studies targeting non-endothelial types to follow as warranted.

Modeling vascular anomalies in zebrafish. Current efforts focus on capillary malformation-arteriovenous malformation syndrome (CM-AVM; loss-of-function EPHB4 mutations) and Sturge-Weber Syndrome (SWS; activating GNAQ mutation), in which cases we have relevant zebrafish lines already in hand. Candidate will be responsible for phenotypic analysis of zebrafish embryos and adults bearing particular mutations, including serial confocal imaging, immunostaining, and scRNA-seq. For CM-AVM models, studies will include efforts to define genetic nature of mosaic lesions in adult heterozygous carriers with application of exome and whole genome sequencing to identify second hit mutations. Follow-up studies will employ CRISPR to test candidates in zebrafish and leverage collaborations with UW Dermatology to investigate second hit candidates in CM-AVM patient lesions. Parallel efforts will include generation and application of new conditional alleles to investigate cell-autonomy through Cre-mediated deletion and to model post embryonic disease progression.

A list of our published work can be found at the following link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/nathan.lawson.1/bibliography/public/

Candidates require a PhD in the Biological Sciences, ideally with a concentration in developmental biology and/or genetics. Expertise with genetic approaches in animal or iPSC models is required and a broad background in molecular biology is preferred. Applicants must be highly motivated and technically accomplished as documented by exceptional publication record. Interested candidates should send a brief (1 page or less) cover letter along with a CV to the email below. Only applicants accepted for initial consideration will be subsequently contacted for letters of reference.