Postdoctoral and PhD Positions in Chemical Biology at Norwegian University of Life Sciences

The Faculty of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science (KBM) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) has two vacant positions in a novel project on enzymatic CO2 reduction. Both the PhD student (3 years) and Postdoctoral (2 years) positions may be extended by one year.

The successful applicants will work on a project named “COOFIX – Evolving novel carbon dioxide reducing enzymes”. Our aim is to engineer metalloenzymes that reduce and assimilate CO2 and further shuttle the enzymatic products into anabolic pathways to generate biomass or valuable fine chemicals using CO2 as carbon feedstock.

The COOFIX project is funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) and will run for 4 years. Altogether, at least 3 postdoctoral researchers, one PhD-student and several undergraduate students will work on the project, along with excellent national and international collaborators. The successful applicants are likely to stay for several months in collaborating US laboratories.

The project will be led by Associate Professor Åsmund Røhr Kjendseth. Our lab aims for high impact science in a in a nourishing working environment where mutual respect, collaboration, tolerance and a healthy work-life balance are valued.

The COOFIX project is highly interdisciplinary. To engineer novel enzymes that can fix CO2, we will combine directed evolution in the laboratory with state-of-the-art computational chemistry methods such as molecular dynamics simulations and quantum chemical calculations. Methods such as electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy and protein crystallography will be used alongside biochemical assays to evaluate engineered enzymes.

Metabolic engineering of bacteria will be performed to i) generate strains for efficient screening during directed evolution and ii) to establish metabolic pathways that can consume the products of the novel carbon dioxide reductases.

Main tasks

Depending on the individual qualifications of the successful applicants, at least three of the tasks listed below will be assigned to each of the successful applicants.

Identify enzyme candidates that are suitable to evolve into CO2 reducing enzymes (selection criteria are in place).
Express and purify enzymes.
Design experiments and carry out directed evolution to optimize certain enzyme activities.
Characterize enzymes by biochemical assays, stopped-flow rapid kinetics, X-ray crystallography, EPR spectroscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy.
Model enzyme catalysis by quantum chemical methods (e.g. DFT) and molecular dynamics simulations (MD, QM/MM/MD, etc.).
Alter anabolic pathways in model organisms by metabolic engineering.

Further details:
Postdoctoral and PhD Positions in Chemical Biology at Norwegian University of Life Sciences