PhD Position in Biology
Location | Wageningen |
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Have you ever thought about the questions, “What is life?” and “Can we create life-like systems?”. Are you excited about the prospect of building artificial entities, using basic molecular components, that can mimic vital characteristics of living systems and have further biotechnological potential? Are you a creative thinker, eager to tackle an exciting synthetic biology project using state-of-the-art facilities in a multidisciplinary and a collaborative department? If so, this might be the perfect PhD position for you!
Project description
Living cells exhibit extensive sub-compartmentalization to regulate and communicate between thousands of interconnected biochemical reactions taking place within the cytoplasm. Along with well-known membrane-bound compartments, phase-separated membraneless organelles have been identified in recent years to play an equally important role in these processes. In this project, we will utilize coacervate-based strategy to form communicative membraneless compartments within cell-mimicking vesicles, with each of the compartments acting as distinct functional biochemical units. Being able to maintain distinct reaction hubs within vesicles will constitute an important step towards building intracellular communication networks. We will use a bioengineering approach, applying our microfluidic and protein engineering toolbox to design scalable multi-compartmentalization capable of organizing the intracellular reaction networks and pave a path towards complex synthetic cells.
This PhD position is part of a larger European consortium, SIGSYNCELL. This is a doctoral network funded by the European Commission via Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions (MSCA), whose goal is training through research. It is a consortium that brings together a dozen European academic partners, in addition to private companies, coordinated by the CNRS in Bordeaux, France. SYGSYNCELL partners include CNRS (F), AMOLF (NL), University of Muenster (DE), University of Ljubjiana (SI), University of Granada (ES), Wageningen University (NL), Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet Heidelberg (DE), and Imperial College London (UK).
Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:
For more information about this position, please contact Dr. Siddharth Deshpande (assistant professor), by e-mail: siddharth.deshpande@wur.nl.
For more information about the procedure, please contact Rutger Voorrips (corporate recruiter), by e-mail: rutger.voorips@wur.nl.
Do you want to apply?
You can apply directly using the apply button on the vacancy page on our website which will allow us to process your personal information with your approval.
This vacancy will be listed up to and including Monday, 6 May 2024. We hope to schedule the first job interviews in June 2024.
Equal opportunities
Wageningen University & Research (WUR) employs a large number of people with very different backgrounds and qualities, who inspire and motivate each other. We want every talent to feel at home in our organisation and be offered the same career opportunities. We therefore especially welcome applications from people who are underrepresented at WUR. A good example of how WUR deals with inclusiveness can be read on the page working at WUR with a functional impairment.
The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment. With its roughly 30 branches, 7,600 employees (6,700 fte) and 13,100 students and over 150,000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.
You will work here:
You will join our EmBioSys Lab, embedded within the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter situated at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Led by Siddharth Deshpande, EmBioSys lab is an interdisciplinary group, and our broad vision is to tackle unsolved biological questions through appropriate bottom-up/biomimetic systems and create soft matter-based materials with biotechnological potential. The current research tackles diverse topics: from shaping synthetic cells and studying protein phase separation, to designing biosensors and making stable emulsions. The use and development of on-chip microfluidic technology forms an integral part of the lab. You will be supervised by Siddharth Deshpande, with support from Renko de Vries lab.
Read the 5 reasons why your future colleagues enjoy working at WUR and watch this video to get an idea of our green campus!
We will recruit for the vacancy ourselves, so no employment agencies please. However, sharing in your network is appreciated.
In your application, please refer to Professorpositions.com