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Responsibilities:
The potential candidate will be expected to discover and engineer new biosynthetic pathways to β-lactam antibiotics.
The project will focus mainly on pathways to β-lactams. New approaches will be developed for engineering of β-lactam biosynthesis to produce new types of β-lactams inaccessible by synthesis and thereby reducing the cost of known β-lactamase antibiotics. The project will apply cutting edge biophysical and cell biology techniques to define fundamental gaps in our knowledge in β-lactamase biosynthesis, e.g. the structure and mechanism of key enzymes in penicillin, cephalosporin, clavam, and carbapenem biosynthesis; (ii) apply the new and existing knowledge to illustrate how biosynthetic enzymes can be combined with advanced organic synthesis to generate new generations of β-lactam and related antibiotics and (iii) explore the isolation of novel β-lactam related natural products from microorganisms present in Oman.
The candidate is expected to carryout out experiments, analyze data, prepare presentations, and manuscripts.
Required qualifications:
The applicant is expected to have the following:
Specific Objectives
The specific objectives of the work comprise the following:
(i) Penicillin biosynthesis studies and engineering.
(ii) Engineering cephalosporin biosynthesis.
(iii) Understanding the latter stages of carbapenem and clavam biosynthesis.
(iv) Identifying new β-lactam producing strains in Oman.
Position Code: NMSRC_OXU
Application Process: Submit a formal application letter, updated curriculum vitae, list of publications (with impact factor), academic certificates, three letters of references, and contact details in ONE PDF file electronically through the following email: recruit.researcher@unizwa.edu.om
Please note: Position code should be included in the email subject.
Continue readingTitle | Senior Research Scientist in Synthetic Biology involving Discovery and Engineering of New Biosynthetic Pathways to Antibiotics. A joint project between Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, UK and the Natural and Medical Sciences Research Center |
Employer | University of Nizwa |
Job location | Nizwa, Ad Dakhiliyah |
Published | February 10, 2020 |
Application deadline | Unspecified |
Job types | Researcher   |
Fields | Biophysics,   Molecular Biology,   Microbiology,   Cell Biology,   Chemical Biology,   Synthetic Chemistry   |