Stillingstittel:
Postdoctoral or PhD fellowship in Biochemistry and Biophysical chemistry - ref.no. 16/01214

Stillingsbeskrivelse:

Global challenges regarding energy and climate change, the environment, health, food safety, technology and renewable solutions, use and conservation of land and natural resources, and development of the bio-economy, requires greater effort. NMBU is well equipped to conduct further research in these fields. NMBU's expertise spans entire value chains and includes both basic and applied research.

 

On 1 January 2014, the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science and the University of Life Sciences merged and became -NMBU, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. NMBU has 1700 employees and 5100 students, and is currently located on two campuses - Ås, about 30 km south of Oslo, and Adamstuen in Oslo. In 2019, the new research- and education-building for veterinary science will be completed and all of NMBU will then be located at Campus Ås.

 

Further information about NMBU is available on www.nmbu.no

Jobbnorge ID: 123009

A Postdoctoral fellow (2 years) or PhD student position (3 years) is available in the field of Biochemistry and Biophysical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology, and Food Science, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway. Starting date 1^st May 2016 at earliest, and no later than 1^st September 2016.

The Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology, and Food Science is located at Campus Ås and has about 150 employees in 12 research groups. During the project, the successful candidate will work in the highly international and collaborating environment of the chemistry group and the protein engineering and proteomics (PEP) group. These groups comprise more than 50 people working with both fundamental and applied research in an energetic and social atmosphere. The research fields covered by these groups include organic, analytical, and physical chemistry, genetics and microbiology, and biotechnology.

The successful candidate will also interact with the project partners. These are the Oslo node of the Centre for Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (CTCC), The Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Kentucky, USA, and the Swiss-Norwegian Beamlines (SNBL), ESRF, Grenoble, France.

 

 

Research project

Recently, a novel class of carbohydrate degrading enzymes (LPMOs) was discovered. It is thought that this class of enzymes, which was initially discovered at NMBU, can revolutionize biorefinery efficiency and increase utilization of biomass feedstocks. The main functional differences from previously known enzyme classes are that they employ an oxidative mechanism depending on copper ions and molecular oxygen, and can perform work on crystalline substrates as cellulose and chitin.

The successful candidate will work on topics related to the reaction mechanism, which involves an enzyme bound redox active copper ion that activates molecular oxygen, inter/intra-molecular electron transfer, and substrate binding/specificity. The main goal of the project is to understand the enzyme reaction mechanism in detail and further use this information for protein engineering and development of novel catalysts. The position is financed by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and the Norwegian Research Council project "Resolving molecular mechanisms of biomass degrading enzymes through a combined computational and experimental approach" (project nr. 240967).

 

 

Main tasks

• Protein expression and purification
• Biochemical assays
• Voltammetry
• Spectroscopic experiments (EPR, UV-vis, Raman, XAS)
• X-ray crystallography and powder diffraction
• Isothermal titration calorimetry

It is not expected that the candidate will perform all techniques listed, howev

Minstelønn: 0

Maksimal lønn: 0

Arbeidsgiver Navn: Norges miljø- og biovitenskapelige unive

Arbeidsgiver adresse: Postboks 5003 1432 ÅS

Job kort beskrivelse: University and higher education teachers

Land: Norge

Region: Akershus

Kilde til jobbtilbud: NAV, Offentlige arbeidsformidlinger, Norge

Lønn valuta: NOK

Lønn periode: Pr. år