The Cotney Lab is interested in determining how gene regulatory elements, namely enhancers, control gene expression during mammalian development. We aim to understand how new gene regulatory functions evolve, to identify mechanisms of enhancer function over large genomic distances, and globally identify variants of enhancer sequences that are associated with human disease.

Postdoctoral Positions

Postdoctoral positions in comparative functional genomics for both experienced molecular biologists and computational biologists are available in the Cotney Lab within the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences and the Institute for Systems Genomics at UConn Health . Our laboratory is applying functional genomics techniques (ChIP-Seq, RNA-Seq, ChIA-PET, Hi-C, etc) to identify novel gene regulatory elements in early mammalian embryonic development. We seek to understand the genetic basis of the evolution of the human form and developmental disorders by integrating multiple types of functional genomics data from a variety of tissues and species.

We seek molecular biologists with a variety of experimental experience including:

• General tissue culture techniques, including culturing of human and mouse cell lines, primary cells, embryonic stem cells and iPS.


• Transient and stable cell transfection, virus­-based infection.


• RNAi­-based knock­down and vector­ mediated ectopic expression, marker­based positive clone selection.


• Cell-­based assays to evaluate viability.


• Protein analysis by western blotting, enzymatic assays.


• DNA/RNA sequencing


• Chromatin immunoprecipitation


• Genome editing (CRISPR)


• Enhancer screens and activity measurement

We seek computational biologists with experience related to functional genomics:

• Scripting languages such as Python, Perl, or Awk


• Statistical packages such as R or Matlab


• Next generation sequencing data such as ChIP-Seq, RNA-Seq, etc.


• Statistical genetics including GWAS and 1000 Genomes data sets.


• Comparative genomics such as multi-species alignments and conservation analysis.


• Visualization of genomic data including Circos, IGV, UCSC Genome browser.


• 3D Modeling or experience with game development

The ideal candidate would have a mixture of both experimental and computational skills.

Accepting Lab Rotation Students: Summer 2022, Fall 2022, and Spring 2023

We will be accepting graduate students from the Genetics and Developmental Biology Graduate program and professional students from the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry for rotations.  Please inquire for possible projects.

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