Open Postdoctoral position, faculty mentor Kacper Rogala

Cryo‑EM and Protein Biochemistry (Rogala Lab, Stanford) — https://rogala.stanford.edu.

The Rogala Lab is seeking ambitious, thoughtful postdoctoral scholars who care deeply about doing excellent science and doing it in a collaborative, generous way. We welcome candidates who are intellectually curious, self-motivated, and excited to tackle difficult mechanistic questions with creativity, rigor, and persistence.

Our lab is part of Stanford’s Department of Structural Biology, the Department of Chemical & Systems Biology, and the Stanford Cancer Institute. We study fundamental mechanisms of cellular metabolic signaling, with a particular focus on protein kinases, small GTPases, and SLC transporters.

We are especially interested in postdoctoral candidates with strong expertise in protein biochemistry and/or cryo-electron microscopy, including at least one of the following: single-particle analysis, cryo-ET, or 2DTM. This position is ideal for researchers who want rigorous training, close mentorship, and the opportunity to build the technical depth and independence needed for the next stage of their careers.

WHY JOIN THE ROGALA LAB?

We welcome trainees who are driven, eager to grow, and committed to contributing to a supportive team culture. The people who thrive most in our lab are those who seek feedback, work hard, think critically, and bring genuine curiosity and intellectual honesty to their science.

Our lab is deeply committed to a growth mindset in training. We directly mentor each trainee to become an expert in at least one major structural biology approach, such as cryo-EM or molecular dynamics, while also developing deep expertise in one or more complementary areas, including:

• Protein chemistry of small GTPases, kinases, SLC transporters, and metabolic enzymes.
• Chemical biology approaches for novel chemical probe discovery and proof-of-concept therapeutics.
• Cell biology approaches to address important mechanistic questions in signaling and metabolism.

Our mission is to help train the next generation of scientific leaders in academia and in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. We are particularly excited to hear from postdocs who aspire to become assistant professors, principal investigators, or group leaders, and who are looking for a training environment that will help them build the expertise, independence, and scientific vision needed to be competitive for those roles.

RESEARCH IN THE LAB

We are a team of structural and chemical biologists interested in how cells control metabolism in response to nutrients. We ask how nutrients are recognized by their protein sensors, how transport across cellular and intracellular membranes is regulated, and how nutrient sensing is integrated with other signals, such as growth factors, to shape cellular decisions about growth.

To answer these questions, we work across scales using cryo-EM, X-ray crystallography, and complementary biochemical, biophysical, chemical biology, and cell biology approaches. We are particularly interested in proteins associated with biological membranes, including large peripheral membrane complexes and integral membrane transporters. In parallel with mechanistic structural work, we develop targeted chemical probes to modulate the activity of signaling proteins in cells and organisms.

SELECTED RECENT WORK:

• Taylor, Chen, Hancock, & Wranik et al. (2025) Structural basis for the recruitment and selective phosphorylation of Akt by mTORC2. Science, PMID: 41308123.
• Valenstein & Wranik et al. (2025) Structural basis for the dynamic regulation of mTORC1 by amino acids. Nature, PMID: 40836086.
• (REVIEW) Linde-Garelli & Rogala (2023) Structural mechanisms of the mTOR pathway. Current Opinion in Structural Biology, PMID: 37572585.
• Valenstein & Rogala et al. (2022) Structure of the nutrient-sensing hub GATOR2. Nature, PMID: 35831510.