PhD positions related to marine polysaccharides and polysaccharide modifying enzymes

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label Burse autorenew 2025-09-29, 17:00 history_edu Maria Dumitru
The Department of Biotechnology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) announces a PhD fellowship in the field of alginate modifying enzymes and another PhD fellowship in the field of chitin/chitosan. The fellowship is for a period of three years without teaching duties, but may be extended for a total period of four years, including 25 % teaching duties at the department.

The position is organized at the Department of Biotechnology. Currently, there are 11 professors, 3 associate professors, 4 adjunct professors and about 30 PhD research fellows and postdoctoral positions appointed at the Department of Biotechnology.



PhD fellowship 1: The project aims at constructing new alginate modifying enzymes for producing new alginates with tailored properties for biomedical and industrial applications. The project will also include characterization of the enzymes in terms of activity, substrate specificity, reaction pattern and the epimerized alginates itself. A successful applicant is highly competent, team player, motivated and ambitious. The candidate should hold very good grades and a MSc or equivalent degree in polysaccharide chemistry, molecular genetics or protein chemistry. Experience in fields related to the project is favorable, such as cultivation of bacteria, bioinformatics or protein engineering.

PhD fellowship 2: The project is related to structure-function relationship in chitosans with emphasis on enzymatic modifications of chitosans and interactions between chitosans and alginates. In addition, the occurrence and structure of the polysaccharide ascophyllan in selected brown algae will be included. The motivated and ambitious candidate should have a solid background in chemistry, biochemistry and biotechnology with a MSc or equivalent degree.

The regulations for PhD programs at NTNU state that a Master degree or equivalent with at least 5 years of studies and an average grade of A or B within a scale of A-E for passing grades (A best) for the two last years of the MSc is required and C or higher of the BSc.