Postdoctoral Research Associate

Full time: 35 hours per week

Fixed term: 18 months

The Opportunity:

We are looking for a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant to lead a project on the biological valorisation of polyester waste-derived feedstocks into high value second generation chemicals. The target molecule has varied applications across the food and flavouring, pharmaceuticals and agrichemical industries. The project will be based in the lab of Dr Joanna Sadler in the Institute of Quantitative Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology (IQB3).

Post-consumer plastic waste is emerging as a promising feedstock for the circular bioeconomy. We and others have engineered de novo biosynthetic pathways in microbial hosts to convert waste polyester-derived small molecules such as terephthalic acid and 3-hydroxybutyrate into higher-value chemical products such as vanillin, catechol and acetone, which are currently synthesized directly from fossil fuels at industrial scale (Green Chem., 2021, 23, 4665-4672; ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2024, 12, 7748–7756). This approach holds huge potential to improve the sustainability of the plastics and chemicals industries, however the scope of chemicals accessible by biological pathways alone is limited by the biocatalysts available. This project aims to address this by developing novel and scalable enzymatic pathways to high value chemical products through metabolic engineering.

This project is part of the UK-Singapore Engineering Biology consortium, Circular Bioeconomy through Engineering Biology Network for Specialty Chemicals, (CIRCBIONET). CIRCBIONET aims to establish a world-class Engineering Biology (EngBio) consortium to catalyse the specialty chemicals industry's transition to sustainable, biosynthetic processes which are embedded within the circular economy by design. Leveraging unique expertise from across the team, this will be enabled by integrating specialty chemical bioproduction with valorisation of end-of-life plastics using a biotechnological ‘upcycling’ approach, pioneered by members of the network. This role within the project will focus on engineering microbial strains for conversion of polyester waste into fatty acids which will be used for biosynthesis of target molecules.

As a CIRCBIONET member, you will have access to training and collaboration from across the international network (UK and Singapore), including opportunities to visit collaborators’ laboratories, engage in interdisciplinary research and innovation, participate in regular online project meetings. 

Your skills and attributes for success: 

• PhD in an appropriate discipline (e.g. biological sciences, biotechnology, biocatalysis, microbial biotechnology, bioorganic chemistry or chemical biology)
• Experience of engineering E. coli for small molecule production, preferably with expertise in fatty acid biosynthesis
• Experience of bioorganic and/or organic chemistry, including common analytical techniques such as GC/LC-MS, HPLC and NMR spectroscopy. 
• Experience of developing, analysing and optimising new bioprocesses
• Enthusiasm for working in a multidisciplinary team at the interface of chemistry and biology

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