This email is sent on behalf of Prof. Stefan Szedlacsek in the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in Bucharest.
Application for PhD Programme in Structural biology and enzyme kinetics Applications are welcomed for a PhD student position in the Department of Enzymology of the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in Bucharest (Romania). This position is funded under a new FP6 Marie Curie Research Training Network - "PTPNET". The Network contains twelve research teams and will focus in depth on protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) structure, regulation and function. This Network will be highly collaborative in nature, providing exciting opportunities for researchers to work in several disciplines and to be exposed to both academia and industry. The team leader of the Romanian group is Professor Stefan Szedlacsek. The specific interest of the group is to understand the structure-function relationships of PTPs and their possible relevance for the physiological functions of PTPs. Using an enzyme kinetic approach, this group has so far obtained important results concerning the interrelationship between intracellular regions of PTPmu. In addition, the group crystallized and solved (in a highly successful international collaboration) the corresponding crystal structure of PTP-SL/BR7; the first structure of a receptor-like PTP with a single cytoplasmic domain. Given the the unique expertise of the group in enzymatic analysis (particularly enzyme kinetics), as well as their structural biology experience the group provides the main Network expertise in enzyme kinetics, screening facilities for substrate specificity analysis as well as tools for structural analysis of the extracellular regions of PTPs. Two main goals are set for this PhD project. First: to determine the 3D-crystal structure of non-catalytic cytoplasmic subdomains of PTPs. Second: to evaluate the substrate specificities and determine the effects of specific modulators and mutations on the enzymatic activity of PTPs. It is also intended to perform correlation analysis between structural and activity data thus obtained. Modern experimental procedures will be applied, like recombinant DNA technologies, protein expression, protein purification and crystallization, spectroscopy, enzyme kinetics analysis. The successful PhD student will be given intensive Network training through dedicated workshops and will be given opportunities to work with other teams during secondments. For further details please e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
