Job Description
Every member of our University is part of the inspiring, supportive, and caring community known as Team Teesside. To learn more about Team Teesside click here.
What we offer you:
– A holiday entitlement of 185 hours (25 days), increasing to 28 and 30 days after 3 and 5 years’ service respectively, plus bank holidays
– Additional leave over the Christmas and New Year period during the Christmas closure
– Special leave to support a range of circumstances
– A variety of provision to support staff with personal development and recognition
– A range of family friendly benefits
– An employee benefits platform which provides discounts with 350+ retailers and access to health and wellbeing resources
– More information about our benefits and an employee benefits brochure can be found here.
Teesside University is a high-performing global institution, committed to delivering an outstanding student and learning experience. As an anchor institution we work in partnership with local organisations and businesses, contributing to the regional and global growth. The £22.3m National Horizons Centre (NHC) is a key part of this mission. The NHC opened in 2019 as a national centre of excellence for innovation and training in bioscience and healthcare, working across the sectors to provide industry-focused training, research, and partnerships.
For this project, NHC and Hexis labs are looking to hire a candidate who has a PhD in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology. The project is very well suited to someone with deep synthetic biology and metabolic engineering expertise. It will be advantageous to have experience of yeast and animal cell culture, protein purification along with basic microbiology and molecular biology techniques. The project is to manufacture a Platform Cell Factory for the production of valuable chemicals and proteins for cosmetic industry using synthetic biology.
Hexis labs has developed HexisProX® discovery platform, which is able to identify potential bioactive structures. Most of these compounds are naturally synthesized through various metabolic pathways particularly through secondary metabolite production and non-ribosomal peptide synthesis. On one hand, nature has optimised these compounds for stability and functionality, while on the other hand cells need them in small quantities usually in μM amounts. However, for industrial applications these compounds are required in huge amounts. To do that either complete pathways are required to be shifted into a heterologous host, which are already optimised for production, or the pathway can be fine-tuned in the original producer. One fortunate thing is that often biosynthetic pathways have genes grouped together and controlled by pathway specific regulators. At Teesside University, Dr. Akram’s group has been successfully producing peptide antibiotics through dynamic regulation of NRPS pathway alongside production of various industrial proteins including monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. This project is looking to produce some cosmetic peptides and complex biomolecules in E. coli and yeast and test them on skin models developed by Hexis labs. Project is supervised by Dr. Muhammad Safwan Akram from Teesside and Dr. Sola Idowu from Hexis Labs.
Please be advised that due to the minimum salary thresholds imposed by the UKVI, this post may qualify for University sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa route.
If you are shortlisted, your interview will take place via Microsoft Teams. Please note that the University may ask you to participate in a number of selection activities as part of the recruitment process for this vacancy.
Click here to find out more about research roles at Teesside.
Please note that we are advertising this vacancy on other websites but we are not using those third parties to collate applications for us. If you are viewing this advert on a third party website please ensure you apply directly to Teesside University.
This post is fixed term for one year.
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