Deadline: 2019-08-14

Location: Groningen , The Netherlands

External link: https://www.rug.nl/about-us/work-with-us/job-opportunities/overview?details=00347-02S000738P

Type: PhD student

Organisation

Founded in 1614, the University of Groningen enjoys an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative centre of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Flexible study programmes and academic career opportunities in a wide variety of disciplines encourage the 31,000 students and researchers alike to develop their own individual talents. As one of the best research universities in Europe, the University of Groningen has joined forces with other top universities and networks worldwide to become a truly global center of knowledge.

The Faculty of Science and Engineering has a vacancy for an experimental PhD project on protein and vesicle dynamics in the lab of Prof. Wouter Roos in the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials. We offer this position in a stimulating, diverse international research environment in a world-class academic institute with a multi-disciplinary research programme that encourages close collaborations between theoretical and experimental groups with different expertise.

Job description

In this project, the PhD student will study the interactions and conformational dynamics of proteins, proteinaceous structures and vesicles using advanced biophysical microscopy techniques. By using traditional Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and High Speed AFM (HS-AFM) the student will scrutinize the kinetics and dynamics of single proteins and assemblies as well as of vesicles. An example of recent work using traditional AFM is Vorselen et al. Nature Communications, 2018, Vol. 9, 4960. An example of recent work using HS-AFM is Maity et al. Science Advances, 2019, Vol. 5, eaau7198.

The student will work closely together both with colleagues in the international and interdisciplinary research environment of the Roos lab as well as with (inter)national collaborators. For this particular project, the focus will be on HS-AFM, with support from traditional AFM experiments. In addition, support from other techniques such as for instance light microscopy and optical tweezers (performed in the Roos lab) as well as electron microscopy and native mass spectrometry (performed by collaborators) are essential in order to create an encompassing view of the studied processes.

Qualifications

You have:

• enthusiasm, excellence, commitment to research and team spirit
• an educational background preferably in (bio)physics, (bio)chemistry, nanoscience or a related area
• completed a European master’s degree or equivalent
• excellent communication skills in both oral and written English.

Conditions of employment

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

• a salary of € 2,325 gross per month in the first year to a maximum of € 2,972 gross per month in the final year (salary scale Dutch Universities), based on a full-time position (1.0 FTE)
• an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% end of the year bonus
• a position for four years; each successful candidate will first be offered a temporary position of one year with the option of renewal for another three years; prolongation of the contract is contingent on sufficient progress in the first year to indicate that a successful completion of the PhD thesis within the contract period is to be expected
• a PhD training programme is part of the agreement and the successful candidate will be enrolled in the Graduate School of the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

The conditions of employment are available at the University of Groningen website under Human Resources: https://www.rug.nl/about-us/work-with-us/

Application
You may apply for this position until 14 August 11.59pm / before 15 August 2019 Dutch local time (CEST) by means of the application form (click on “Apply” below on the advertisement on the university website).

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our University. We are committed to building a diverse faculty so you are encouraged to apply. Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP), https://nvp-plaza.nl/download/?id=7714 and European Commission’s European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers, https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code

For further questions/inquiries, please refer to the contact information. You are very welcome to contact prof. Roos, in order to discuss the application.

Unsolicited marketing is not appreciated.

Information

For information you can contact: