Join the Rajan Lab

We are recruiting on two fronts for 2026–27. Choose the one that fits you to jump to the details.

Postdoctoral fellows

Start date January 2027 or later. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Apply through Fred Hutch careers (job 31508).

How does the body turn a local disturbance — an infection, a surplus of nutrients, a stressed organ — into a coordinated, whole-organism response? The Rajan Lab asks how cells sense, encode, and communicate metabolic and immune stress between organs. Working in adult Drosophila as a discovery engine, with validation in mammalian systems, we have found that cells repurpose conserved molecular machinery in unexpected ways and move signals between distant tissues — opening fresh territory in cell biology and neurobiology.

We’re a small, highly collaborative team tackling how inter-organ communication shapes physiology and brain health—especially fat-to-brain signals that influence innate immunity, cognition, hunger, and brain senescence/aging. We work primarily in Drosophila with growing mammalian extensions, combining genetics, advanced imaging, physiology, and -omics. We value curiosity, rigor, and kindness. If you’re excited to build new biology at the interface of metabolism, innate immunity and the brain, we’d love to hear from you.

We are looking for Postdoctoral Fellows – who drive independent, high-impact projects with close mentorship from Akhila and clear pathways to fellowships and future independence. You will anchor in an established, funded project and are expected — and actively supported — to build an independent niche from it.

Research areas

Our portfolio spans several actively growing areas. You can enter through any of them:

• Atg8 spatiophysiology. How the conserved Atg8/LC3–GABARAP machinery is redeployed beyond autophagy — through lipidation, LIR/LDS partner docking, and membrane remodeling — to encode and externalize a cell’s stress state. A fellow in this area could focus on either its chromatin biology or extracellular cargo trafficking arm.

• Brain senescence & adipo-glial communication. How adipocyte-derived signals govern glial phagocytosis (Draper/MEGF10), JNK/AP-1–driven senescence, lipid-droplet accumulation, and brain aging.

• Inter-organ mitochondrial signaling. How mitochondrial components and cellular oxidative-phosphorylation state are mobilized to coordinate physiology between organs.

• Lipoprotein & lipid biology. How ApoB lipoproteins and adipocyte lipid state act as inter-organ signals in metabolism and neuroprotection.

• Behavior & cognition. How these molecular signals shape Drosophila feeding and cognition (learning and memory) as the physiological output of metabolic and immune stress.

Who we are looking for

We especially welcome candidates with demonstrated strength in one or more of the following. You do not need all of them — depth in one, and enthusiasm for the rest, is ideal:

• Biochemistry, particularly the Atg8/ubiquitin-like protein and autophagy field, or the biochemistry of chromatin biology

• Mitochondrial biology

• Lipoprotein / lipid biology

• Drosophila behavior (feeding or cognition — learning and memory)

Build your own niche — and launch your lab

Our funded projects are launch pads, not boxes. From day one you will be encouraged to develop your own questions, own a defined direction, and carry it toward your independent career. The goal is field-shaping, high-impact work in cell biology or neurobiology.

Mentoring here is oriented around your success as a future PI. Rajan Lab postdocs have won prestigious fellowships — including the Helen Hay Whitney and NSF Postdoctoral fellowships — and moved on to independent research careers. We invest in fellowship applications, first-author and collaborative publications, conference visibility, and the transition to independence.

Environment

The Rajan Lab sits within the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutch — a world-class basic-research community that is home to many internationally renowned scientists across cell biology, genetics, developmental biology, biochemistry, and computational biology. This is a rare concentration of fundamental-discovery expertise, and its culture is deeply collaborative.

A defining feature of the environment is the opportunity to build projects across labs: fellows are encouraged to forge collaborations with neighboring groups, co-develop questions that span disciplines, and draw on shared, cutting-edge resources — outstanding genomics, imaging, proteomics, flow cytometry, and computational cores. Fred Hutch hosts more than 200 postdoctoral fellows on a vibrant Seattle campus, offering a supportive community and rich professional-development and career-transition programs.

Qualifications

• This position is for scientists completing their PhD or very recently graduated. We do not consider applicants who have already begun a postdoc — candidates must be fresh out of graduate school and remain eligible for major postdoctoral fellowships, which generally require applying within ~12 months of the PhD.

• A PhD (recent, or expected within ~6 months) in cell biology, neurobiology, biochemistry, genetics, or a related field

• A strong foundation in molecular and cell biology

• Background in one of the focus areas above; familiarity with Drosophila genetics and/or mammalian cell culture is desirable

• A creative, independent thinker who also thrives as part of a collaborative team

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

How to apply

Please include: (1) a cover letter describing your previous research, your future research interests, and your career goals; (2) a CV; and (3) contact information for three references. Submit your application through the Fred Hutch careers posting: Post-doctoral Research Fellow, job 31508.

Start date: January 2027 or later. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Compensation follows the NIH scale, with support for external fellowship applications strongly encouraged.

The Rajan Lab and Fred Hutch are committed to building a diverse, inclusive research community and welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds.

Research Technician I

We are hiring a full-time, in-person Research Technician I to join the lab’s support team, to start by November 15, 2026.

The role is the practical backbone of the lab: maintaining our Drosophila stock collection, running feeding-behavior assays, and preparing and shipping fly stocks. As your skills grow, the role takes on pilot experiments, including brain dissection and confocal imaging. You will work alongside our other Research Technician I and be supervised day to day by our senior technician.

This is primarily a support role. We are looking for someone who will find satisfaction in doing careful, reliable work that makes other people’s experiments possible. It also has a real path to growth: technicians who do the support work well are given ownership of a project, learn molecular techniques, and contribute figure panels to papers. Research technicians in this lab have typically earned middle-author positions on several manuscripts within three years and have gone on to PhD or MD programs.

Who we are looking for

A conferred bachelor’s degree in biology or a related field; general wet-lab competence; attention to detail and good record keeping; curiosity and humility; and a realistic two-to-three-year commitment. Prior Drosophila experience is welcome but not required; we teach fly husbandry.

How to apply

Apply through the Fred Hutch careers posting: Research Technician I, job 32030. No email is necessary.