Uppsala University hereby declares the following positions to be open for application: PhD position in Historical geology and palaeontologi at the Department of Earth Sciences (Palaeobiology programme). Starting date; as soon as possible.
Project description: The priapulids are a small but evolutionarily significant group of marine worms that are related to both of the important model organisms Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans: in addition, stem-group priapulids were dominant components of the early marine ecosystems of the Cambrian. Because of their important phylogenetic position close to the base of the Ecdysozoa (arthropods plus cycloneuralians), these poorly-studied organisms have been selected for genome sequencing, which is expected to be completed shortly.
However, many aspects of their basic developmental biology are unknown. The successful candidate will continue to characterise the molecular and morphological development biology of the priapulids, building on previous work in our group. The work will include a newly-established in situ hybridization protocol as well as a variety of histological and staining techniques. The project will be jointly supervised by Prof. Graham E. Budd and Dr. Ralf Janssen in Uppsala and Dr. A. Hejnol in the Sars Institute, Bergen, Norway.
PhD position in Historical geology and palaeontologi
