Fully funded PhD positions are available in the area of Synthetic Biology as of 1st November 2011 or soon thereafter. The successful PhD fellows will be part of the UNIK research program in Synthetic Biology at the University of Copenhagen.
The UNIK research program on Synthetic Biology is located at Nano-Science Center, Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, Department of Basic Sciences and Environment and Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology.
The PhD fellow will furthermore be associated with either Copenhagen Graduate School for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, or Research School for Biotechnology or Copenhagen Graduate School of Health Sciences.
The following PhD position is available.
Detection of protein dynamics using single molecule fluorescence confocal microscopy.
The ability to detect the fluorescence of a single fluorophore has led to great advances in understanding of heterogeneity and dynamics at the nanoscale level in life and material sciences. The specific emission properties of fluorophores like its intensity, decay time, emission wavelength (spectrum) and anisotropy can be used to probe changes in the fluorophores surrounding. For example, fluorescence decay time changes can be used as a powerful tool to monitor quenching and energy transfer processes.
A confocal microscope setup will be developed with multiple avalanche photodiodes and a spectrometer (polychromator/CCD camera) that can be used to monitor changes in multiple parameters of the single fluorophores emission at the same time, providing a wealth of information. In order to extract as much information as possible, it is important to choose fluorophores with a high absorption coefficient, high fluorescence, low triplet, and low photobleaching quantum yield.
For this, organic fluorophores (with and without the presence of photostability enhancing additives, like e.g. ROXS) will be tested and compared with a new class of silver cluster based emitters, attached to proteins in order to determine their photo stability performance. As a test case we will investigate the conformational changes that occur during binding and transport of substrate within the neurotransmitter transporter homologue, LeuT.
Salary and employment
Salary is paid according to the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and the Danish Federation of Professional Associations (AC). PhD employment is for a total period of 3 years.
