Almost a year after the National Cancer Institute set out to create a new RNAi research group, the institute is close to signing on a director for the program, RNAi News has learned.
The group, according to the NIH, is designed to promote collaboration on RNAi research with investigators from both inside and outside the National Institutes of Health, as well as facilitate translational and clinical cancer research. Specifically, the group is to develop: libraries of validated siRNA sequences against cancer-associated transcripts; resources to help researchers generate single gene knock-down; and high-throughput RNAi knockdown screens for new molecular targets of cancer.
In a posting for the director position, issued in July, the NIH said it was seeking a candidate with a PhD or equivalent in biochemistry, molecular biology, immunology, microbiology, biology, or chemistry, as well as expertise in RNAi and/or siRNA, miRNA, and other processes related to post-transcriptional gene silencing.
All applications were to be received by Aug. 15.