[ccp4bb] 10 PhD Fellowships in Protein Design for Synthetic Biology and Bioanalysis (H2020-MSCA-ITN Project RNAct; Ref. RNAct-ESRs)

[Aitor Sánchez <Aitor.Sanchez@VUB.BE>]

Dear colleagues,

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network is looking for enthusiastic candidates for 10 fully funded PhD positions offered across Europe. The positions involve scientific topics such as structural bioinformatics, computational biology, methods development, machine learning, structural biology, biophysics, synthetic biology and bioanalytics.

Locations: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden.

Expected Start Date: 1 September 2019
Closing Date: 31 March 2019

Find below some details on the 10 PhD projects.

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These 10 Ph.D. positions are provided by RNAct, a European Innovative Training Network project. The interdisciplinary research aim of RNAct is the design of novel RNA recognition motif (RRM) proteins for exploitation in synthetic biology and bio-analytics. This includes computational approaches at the sequence and structure levels of proteins and RNA, large-scale phage display experiments with RNA screening, integrative structural biology approaches, implementation of RRMs in synthetic biology, and bio-analytics to detect RNA in-cell and design RNA biochips.

RNAct is a collaborative project between 7 teams in 6 countries, from both academia and biotech industry, that will offer a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary structured curriculum for doctoral students.

10 doctoral thesis fellowships (for ESRs, Early-Stage Researchers) are available in the areas of structural bioinformatics, structural biology using NMR and crystallography, synthetic biology and bio-analytics:

ESR1:Predicting biophysical characteristics of proteins from their amino acid sequence (Computational, VUB, Brussels, Belgium).

ESR2: Improving the in-silico structure representation of proteins (Computational, VUB, Brussels, Belgium).

ESR3: Collect, integrate and analyse RRM data (Computational, CNRS, Nancy, France).

ESR4: Improve methods to dock RNA with proteins (Computational, CNRS, Nancy, France).

ESR5: Structure calculation and computational design of RRMs (Computational/Experimental, HMGU, Munich, Germany)

ESR6: Structural biology (NMR, X-ray crystallography) and biophysical techniques of designed RRMs (Experimental, HMGU, Munich, Germany).

ESR7: Analyse RRM dynamics via structural biology (NMR) and biophysical techniques (Experimental, Giotto Biotech, Florence, Italy).

ESR8: Integrate RRMs in prokaryotes to create new pathways in synthetic biology (Experimental, CSIC, Valencia, Spain).

ESR9: Create biochips to study RRM/RNA interactions. (Experimental, Dynamic Biosensors, Munich, Germany).

ESR10: Deploy RRMs for in-cell analytics (Experimental, Ridgeview Instruments, Uppsala, Sweden).

Eligible applicants must hold a Masters degree of Science (MSc) in the field of chemistry, biochemistry, physical, life sciences or computational sciences as requested in the respective job description. They must not have stayed in the country of the host lab for more than 1 year during the last 3 years, and be in the first four years (full-time equivalent) of their research careers. Do not apply if you already hold a Ph.D.

The project is highly interdisciplinary: the day-to-day work involves a lot of programming on atomic representations of proteins and nucleic acids. Good programming skills (preferentially Python and/or C++) are essential. Knowledge of structural biology is very desirable, skills in discrete mathematics and statistics would be appreciated. Most importantly, candidates must be motivated to learn about all disciplines relevant to the Project.

Candidates must be fluent in English.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 31st of March 2019 (11:59 pm)

For further information on the specific positions and on the application process, please see http://rnact.eu/

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