Location: | Sheffield |
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Salary: | £35,333 per annum |
Hours: | Full Time |
Contract Type: | Fixed-Term/Contract |
Placed On: | 8th December 2022 |
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Closes: | 16th January 2023 |
Job Ref: | UOS035572 |
Mapping the thousands of connections between individual neurons in the brain, a field called connectomics, is critical to our understanding of the mechanisms behind neurodegenerative conditions, such as autism and schizophrenia, and the brain’s complex responses to stimuli, such as images, smells and sounds. For many decades, various electron microscopy (EM) techniques have been the dominant imaging technique in connectomics, but these methods are error-prone and require months, or even years, of data acquisition and processing. Thus, while providing the highest resolution, using EM alone it is difficult to obtain wider contextual information such as the identity of neurons that are linked together by the synapses visible in the EM 3D images.
This project brings together the University of Sheffield, the Diamond Light Source and the Crick Institute in a new collaboration aimed at developing an X-ray imaging tool to complement ultra-high resolution EM methods and provide non-destructive, sub-100nm resolution, large volume mapping of brain tissue in three dimensions. The project will translate to the X-ray synchrotron proof-of-principle work at Sheffield that has successfully imaged large volumes using a technique called “multislice ptychography”. The project is funded by the BBSRC through its Basic Technologies in Sensing and Imaging programme.
The project requires a post-doctoral level candidate with expertise in diffractive imaging methods, particularly ptychography, and the associated iterative reconstruction algorithms. The work will involve close collaboration with postdoctoral researchers and beamline scientists at the Diamond Light Source and with a postdoctoral scientist at the Crick Institute under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Schaefer. The successful candidate will join the ptychography research group within EEE, led by Prof. John Rodenburg FRS and Dr. Andrew Maiden (Principle Investigator on this project). The group is recognised internationally for its work in developing ptychography and several of the key algorithms and experimental processes involved in the technique.
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