Join the team! Current Darwin Tree of Life project vacancies are listed below
There are currently no vacancies within the Darwin Tree of Life Project, but please check back soon!
Other vacancies in research groups allied to the project are listed below
European Bioinformatics Institute & Sanger Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunity [ESPOD] Symbiosis Genomics
Mark Blaxter (Sanger Institute), Rob Finn (EMBL-EBI) and Nick Goldman (EMBL-EBI) Symbiotic interactions enable high biodiversity in many, otherwise nutrient poor, ecosystems. In the specific case of photosymbiosis, the autotrophic nutrition supplied by these photosymbionts can provide sufficient carbon, fixed nitrogen and energy for holobiont (microbial symbiont and host) metabolism. With advances in sequencing and informatics techniques, we propose to explore the genomes from holobionts at scale. We will analyse the biology of photosymbionts using technologies emerging from metagenomics and systems reconstruction of biochemistry. Using data generated by Darwin Tree of Life and Aquatic Symbiosis Genomics projects (Blaxter) and toolkits developed by the Finn and Goldberg labs you will characterise photosymbiotic relationships from a genomic perspective, developing new approaches to produce high quality, reliable genomes. Through comparative genomic analyses of obligate and facultative symbionts, and closely related non-symbionts, you will elucidate mechanisms that underpin these relationships. These hypotheses will be validated by functional genomic experiments. This work will support understanding of carbon and nitrogen cycles in the oceans and their likely responses to environmental change, of the associations between eukaryotic cells and photosymbionts in lichens that resulted in the first terrestrial biomes, and of the exotic biochemistry behind production of molecules of pharmaceutical and biotechnological interest.
Applications are open now; please contact us to discuss ideas. Mark Blaxter (mb35@sanger.ac.uk), Rob Finn (rdf@ebi.ac.uk), Nick Goldman (goldman@ebi.ac.uk)