Open vacancies

About Inbiose

Inbiose is a spin off company from Ghent University specialized in the development of biotechnological production processes of specialty carbohydrates. At this time 50 people are working at Inbiose and the number of collaborators will expand over the next years significantly. More information about Inbiose can be found on www.inbiose.com.

 About the job

This PhD is part of a larger European project aiming to find novel antimicrobial approaches to combat multidrug resistant bacteria (https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/867357). One class of molecules that holds great potential are non-digestible oligosaccharides and therefore the objective of this PhD is to build a library of well-defined high-purity oligosaccharides that can be used for further in vitro and in vivo studies within the project. Different core structures will be synthesised and further modified, mainly enzymatically with glycosyltransferases (at Inbiose), but also chemically (secondment at University of Utrecht). To expand the range of interesting oligosaccharides, novel glycosyltransferases will be needed and accordingly high throughput screening protocols will have to be setup up and optimised, together with small scale synthesis and purification protocols to obtain pure product. The resulting oligosaccharides will not only be tested in vitro for their antimicrobial properties (secondment at University of Utrecht), but will also be used to further characterise the current enzyme portfolio, derive structure-function relations and guide the search and creation of new and improved enzyme variants.

 Your profile

• You have a MSc in Bioscience Engineering, (Bio)Chemistry, Biotechnology, Biology or equivalent

• You have hands-on experience in molecular biology, biocatalysis, protein production and (small scale) fermentation

• You are proficient in data analysis and visualisation (R, python, … )

• You take initiative to work independently and you evince creative thinking

• You can present ideas and cooperate with other teams

• Knowledge of carbohydrates, glycobiology, protein engineering and/or bioinformatics is a plus

• Knowledge of scientific software and tools for gene design, cloning, sequence analysis, structure analysis, …  is advantageous

 Eligibility criteria

• No previous PhD

• No more than four years of research experience

• Not resided in Belgium for more than 12 months during the 3 years immediately before the start of the PhD

• Proficient in written and spoken English

 Application requirements

• Cover letter, explaining motivation for applying and how the job requirements are met (one A4 page maximum)

• A detailed Curriculum Vitae, including work experience, thesis, advanced level courses, publications, awards, etc. …

• Contact information of two referees

• Copies of diplomas, including list of courses taken and grades obtained

• Any other information deemed relevant