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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:105%"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Dear Friends and Colleagues,</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:105%"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I would be grateful for your assistance in identifying outstanding postdoctoral candidates for my laboratory.
<b><i>Our research focuses on evolution of specialized metabolic pathways that protect plants from environmental damage.</i></b> The position offers training in state of the art metabolomics, functional genomics and structural biology research in a highly collaborative
laboratory and campus environment. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:105%"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Areas of current and future interest include:</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;line-height:105%">-<span style="font-size:7.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">
</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Identification of evolutionary mechanisms contributing to metabolic diversity in trichomes and roots of plants across the Solanaceae.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;line-height:105%">-<span style="font-size:7.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">
</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Use of gene editing technologies to study the roles of acylsugars in plant-insect and plant-microbe interactions.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:.5in;line-height:105%">
-<span style="font-size:7.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">
</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Leveraging BAHD acyltransferase diversity for protein structure-function analysis and engineering of medically important compounds.
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:105%"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">We are located in a dynamic plant research environment on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI USA. We benefit enormously
from collaborations with computational biologists, structural biologists, analytical chemists and metabolic biochemists.
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:105%"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Recent publications include:</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Moghe, G.D., B.J. Leong, S. Hurney, A.D. Jones and R.L. Last. 2017. Evolutionary routes to biochemical innovation revealed by integrative analysis of a plant
defense related specialized metabolic pathway. eLife 2017;6:e28468 DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.28468" target="_blank">
<span style="color:#0563C1">https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.28468</span></a> </span>
<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Fan, P., A.M. Miller, X. Liu, A.D. Jones and R.L. Last. 2017. Evolution of a flipped pathway creates metabolic innovation in tomato trichomes through BAHD
enzyme promiscuity. Nat. Comm. 8, Article number: 2080. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02045-7" target="_blank">
<span style="color:#0563C1">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02045-7</span></a>
</span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:105%;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Leong, B.J., D. Lybrand, Y.-R. Lou, P. Fan, A.L. Schilmiller, R.L. Last. 2019. Evolution of metabolic novelty: a trichome-expressed invertase
creates specialized metabolic diversity in wild tomato. Sci. Advances 5 (4), eaaw3754
<a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaaw3754" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0563C1">https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaaw3754</span></a>
</span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:105%;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Leong, B.J., S.M. Hurney, P.D. Fiesel, G.D. Moghe, A.D. Jones and R.L. Last. 2020. Specialized metabolism in a non-model nightshade: trichome
acylinositol biosynthesis. Plant Physiol. DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.20.00276" target="_blank">
<span style="color:#0563C1">https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.20.00276</span></a> </span>
<o:p></o:p></li></ol>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="6" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:105%;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Fan, P., P. Wang, Y.-R. Lou, B.J. Leong, B.J. Moore, C.A. Schenck, R. Combs, P. Cao, F. Brandizzi, S.-H. Shiu and R.L. Last. 2020. Evolution
of a plant gene cluster in Solanaceae and emergence of metabolic diversity. eLife 2020;9:e56717. DOI:
<a href="https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56717" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56717</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;line-height:105%"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:105%"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Interested candidates should send a statement of research interest, CV and contact information for three referees familiar with you and
your accomplishments to <a href="mailto:roblast1@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">roblast1@gmail.com</span></a></span></i></b><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">.
</span></b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Please also apply at
</span><span style="color:#1F497D"> <a href="https://careers.msu.edu/cw/en-us/job/503724/research-associatefixed-term" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">https://careers.msu.edu/cw/en-us/job/503724/research-associatefixed-term</span></a>.
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:105%"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Sincerely,</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:105%"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Rob Last<br>
Barnett Rosenberg Professor of Plant Biochemistry</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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