[SA_Scat] PhD Research Fellowship in Biological Soft Matter - “Mechanism of Antimicrobial Peptides seen by Neutron Scattering”

[stephen.king at stfc.ac.uk]

Dear colleagues,

A PhD-position in biological soft matter is available in my group at the University of Oslo (three year contract).  http://uio.easycruit.com/vacancy/1778869/64291?iso=no


Best,

Reidar Lund
University of Oslo

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Antimicrobial peptides and peptoidomimetic compounds such as peptoids, are promising candidates to fight resistant bacteria. However, their mechanism is not understood in detail and issues such as toxicity and sensitivity towards proteolytic degradation limit their practical applications. The project aims to understand the fundamental biophysical mechanism of antimicrobial peptides and petidomimetics so as to be better able to modify and design new effective antimicrobial agents.
The candidate will perform systematic studies of the interactions between model biomembranes (liposomes, supported bilayers) and antimicrobial peptides and investigate their effect on structure, dynamics and transport using manly X-ray and neutron scattering techniques. The main methods will be small angle neutron/X-ray scattering (SAXS/SANS), neutron/X-ray reflectometry including advanced data modeling. Complementary techniques are mainly light scattering, single ion conductivity (BLM) and calorimetry.
The PhD work will be done in close collaboration with Roskilde University and University of Copenhagen who will design, synthesize and perform biological characterization of the antimicrobial compounds.