Positions Available

PhD project Opportunities

Structural studies of chromatin proteins in the human malaria parasite

A PhD project is available for Structural studies of chromatin proteins in the human malaria parasite . Further details are available from Dr. Catherine Merrick (c.merrick@biol.keele.ac.uk) or Professor Trevor Forsyth (tforsyth@ill.fr or v.t.forsyth@keele.ac.uk).

Placement opportunities in France

Are you looking for the opportunity to put your learning into practice, to work in an exciting and international scientific environment, and to discover the wealth of expertise at the Partnership in Structural Biology in Grenoble? Consider spending a few months in a scientific campus in Grenoble, France.

Students can come to spend part of their university career working at the Deuteration Laboratory, through work placements for periods usually from two to six months. Whilst most of the placements are scientific in content – a background in Chemistry and/or Physics and/or Biochemistry is required; preference is given to final year students - there are also opportunities in other fields (computing, technical …)

Specific projects will be advertised here when/if available but if you feel you would like to do a placement at the Deuteration Laboratory or you would just like to find out more please contact Dr Susana Teixeira (s.c.m.teixeira@natsci.keele.ac.uk; please write “Dlab placement in the subject of your email).

2011 Work Placement

The effect of deuteration on cryo-cooling of biological crystal structures – ref. 11/TEI
(Science Division / Large Scale Structures Group)

Many techniques (e.g. NMR and X-ray crystallography) use deuterium labelling either to improve sample/data quality or to highlight specific structural points of interest. Neutron crystallography in particular makes extensive use of deuterium labelling to improve data signal-to-noise ratio, allowing the study of increasingly complex biological systems. There is however a lack of systematic studies on the nature and extent of the effects of deuterium labelling on data quality, accuracy of the structure determined and corresponding biological relevance.

This placement addresses the problem of the effects of deuterium labelling on the cryo-cooling of crystal samples. X-ray and neutron structures will be compared systematically for labelled and non-labelled samples. The studies will make use of the world-leading X-ray and neutron facilities available on the EPN campus, as well as the PSB platforms. This experience will no doubt be of great value to students who wish to pursue a career in structural biology.

Duration: 4 months
Level: 3rd year university studies in chemistry, biochemistry or biophysics
Supervisor: Susana Teixeira, Email: teixeira(at)ill.eu
Work placement conditions at the ILL can be found here.