Postdoctoral positions are available to study mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance and cancer epigenetics in the Zhang Lab at Columbia University Irving Medical Center through bioinformatic analysis.

The first long-term goal of our laboratory is to determine how chromatin states are inherited during S phase of the cell cycle and how this process when going awry, leads to genome instability. Specifically, the lab focuses on elucidating nucleosome assembly pathways are regulated using a variety of systems including yeast, mouse embryonic stem cells and human cells. Our second long-term goal is to determine how epigenetic changes drive tumorigenesis and drug resistance. The Zhang laboratory is one of the first laboratories that discovered how onco-histone mutations, H3K27M (found in diffuse intrinsic midline glioma (DMG)) and H3.3K36M (found in chondroblastoma and head and neck cancer), reprogram cancer epigenomes and drive tumorigenesis.

We are looking for an outstanding individual with strong background in molecular biology and biochemistry, and cancer biology. Detailed information about our laboratory and Research Projects can be found online:

Zhang Lab and Research information can be found at:

Interested candidates email their CV and the names of three references to

1. Li Z, Duan S, Hua X, Xu X, Li Y, Menolfi D, Zhou H, Lu C, Zha S, Goff S, Zhang Z. Asymmetric distribution of parental H3K9me3 in S phase silences L1 elements (2023). Nature, 623:643-651.

2. Xu X, Duan S, Hua X, Li Z, He R, and Zhang Z. Stable inheritance of H3.3-containing nucleosomes during mitotic cell divisions (2022). Nature Communications, 13: 2514.

3. Mo Y, Duan S, Zhang X, Hua X, Zhou H, Wei HJ, Watanabe J, McQuillan N, Su Z, Gu W, Wu CC, Vakoc CR, Hashizume R, Chang K and Zhang Z. Cancer Discovery, 12:2906-2929.

4. Yu, C., Gan, H., Serra-Cardona, A., Zhang, L., Gan, S., Sharma, S., Johansson, E., Chabes, A., Xu, R.M., Zhang, Z. A mechanism for preventing asymmetric histone segregation onto replicating DNA strands (2018). Science, 361:1386-1389.

5. Zhang, L., Serra-Cardona, A., Zhou, H., Wang, M., Yang, N., Zhang, Z*. and Xu, R*. Multisite substrate recognition in Asf1-dependent acetylation of histone H3K56 by Rtt109 (2018). Cell 174, 174(4):818-830

6. Fang D, Gan H, Lee J, Han J, Wang Z, Riester SM, Jin L, Chen J, Zhou H, Wang J, Zhang H, Yang N, Bradley EW, Ho TH, Rubin BP, Bridge JA, Thibodeau SN, Ordog T, Chen Y, van Wijnen AJ, Oliveira AM, Xu R, Westendorf JJ, Zhang Z (2016). The histone H3.3K36M mutation reprograms the epigenome of chondroblastomas. Science, 352: 1344-1348.

Highly motivated scientist with a strong background in Bioinformatic analysis.

PhD in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Genetics, or equivalent.

Demonstrated experience in genome sequencing data analysis

Excellent communication skills and teamwork

Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Pay Transparency Disclosure

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to departmental budgets, qualifications, experience, education, licenses, specialty, and training. The above hiring range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.