Monday 12 November 2012

Denmark: 2 PhD scholarships in “Metabolic Engineering of Yeast”

Deadline: 23 Nov. 2012

Two 3-year PhD scholarships are available at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, from the 15th of December 2012 or earliest thereafter.

At the Center for Biosustainability we work on developing platform cell factories that can be used for efficient production of a range of different chemicals. In these projects there will be developed platform yeast cell factories for production of aromatic chemicals. There is much interest in aromatic chemicals in the chemical industry as these can be used for production of dyes, anti-oxidants, nutraceuticals and food ingredients. Yeast is a widely used cell factory and it is particularly well suited for production of aromatic chemicals that involve complex biosynthetic routes involving P450 enzymes. This class of enzymes is difficult to express in E. coli, another widely used cell factory for production of chemicals.

The projects will involve metabolic engineering of the aromatic amino acid biosynthetic pathways, expression of heterologous pathways for production of biochemicals derived from aromatic amino acids, as well as strain characterization using detailed phenotypic analysis, e.g. flux analysis, metabolic modeling and RNA sequencing. Based on the analysis new targets for further improvement will be identified and implemented for further improvement of the aromatic biochemical production.

QualificationsThe candidate should have a Master's degree in engineering/biology/biotechnology or a similar degree with an academic level equivalent to the Master's degree. Solid knowledge of molecular biology techniques, genetics, bioinformatics and biochemistry is required.

Salary and appointment termsThe salary and appointment terms are consistent with the current rules for PhD degree students. The period of employment is 3 years.

Further information For further information please contact Professor Jens Nielsen, jenn@biosustain.dtu.dk or project leader Irina Borodina, +45 4525 8020, irbo@biosustain.dtu.dk


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