Advanced Technician Teaching and Research

The Role and the Department

At the CPBM, we are interested in understanding, designing and building natural and artificial bionanomachines. Bionanomachines are fascinating nanoscale devices made from biological molecules, typically proteins, lipids, RNA and DNA. In nature they carry out an amazing array of tasks, from copying our DNA to converting light into energy. Our exploratory work uses a mixture of biochemical, structural and computational techniques plus the most important ingredient, imagination, to make machines that exceed nature’s capabilities.

The Dept. of Biosciences partners with other areas of research strength in Durham University including Computational Sciences and Chemistry and encourages multidisciplinary research for Health and Wellbeing. Durham University was listed in the Times Higher World Top 50 Life Science Challengers (July 2017).

The Department holds an Athena SWAN Silver award. Athena SWAN is a national initiative that recognises the advancement of gender equality, representation and progression. The Department embraces excellence in all of its forms and invites all qualified applicants to apply. We particularly welcome applications from women and black and minority ethnic candidates who are under-represented in the academic sector.

You will join our multidisciplinary team to work on a project to design and produce an artificial, dynamic protein cage-based vaccine able to stimulate humoral responses, gain cell entry, and open within the cell to release cargoes that further stimulate immune response. This will primarily involve two work-packages, a) Protein-Cage Design and Engineering, and b) Protein Construction, validation and testing. The work is funded by the prestigious Academy of Medical Sciences.

The post holder will also be responsible for assisting with the day-to-day technical functions and operations in the Centre for Programmable Biological matter, providing technical assistance throughout a busy suite of laboratories ensuring smooth and efficient operation throughout both areas.

The location for this role will be 100% on-site in our newly refurbished labs with state-of-the art equipment, located in the Department of Chemistry, Durham University.