Postdoctoral Research Associate – Developmental Biology

Postdoctoral Research Associate

The Kroll laboratory is seeking Postdoctoral Research Associates to spearhead new investigations expanding upon our core research programs in human cortical development and neurodevelopmental disorders (including autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, epilepsy, and brain overgrowth syndromes). Fellows will drive independent projects leveraging our established human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) differentiation pipelines—utilizing patient-derived iPSCs, patterned brain organoids, and assembloids—alongside our multi-omics, high-content imaging, and HD-MEA functional assessment platforms. Successful candidates will collaborate closely with team members to uncover transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms governing GABAergic interneuron and excitatory neuron specification.

The Kroll laboratory focuses on defining transcriptional and epigenetic regulatory networks that build the human cerebral cortex, and how disruption of these programs causes neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, and epilepsy. We study how cortical neural progenitors are specified and initiate neurogenesis, and how the two major classes of cortical neurons, glutamatergic excitatory neurons and GABAergic inhibitory interneurons, differentiate, mature, and assemble into functional networks. To study these processes in human cells, we use directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including genome-edited and patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), into cortical excitatory and inhibitory neurons and patterned brain organoids and assembloids. We combine these models with genome-wide approaches including defining changes in genome-wide transcription factor occupancy and histone modification state by CUT&RUN/Tag, RNA-seq, high-content imaging, and functional neuronal network assessment by high-density multi-electrode array. We also work with complementary mouse models to study aspects of neurodevelopmental disorders.