PhD candidate

Application Deadline: 1 Dec 2026 - 23:59 (UTC) Country: France Type of Contract: Temporary Job Status: Full-time Hours Per Week: 35 Offer Starting Date: 1 Feb 2027 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?: Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?: No Offer Description The PhD candidate will work in the Signaling and Asymmetry of the Bacterial cell team (SAB) at the MMSB laboratory (Molecular Microbiology and Structural Biochemistry, CNRS, Lyon), which develops integrated approaches in genetics, molecular biology, and imaging to study bacterial adaptation to their environment. The lab has the equipment required for the planned approaches (epifluorescence microscopy, ...). Regular supervision will be provided (team meetings, annual thesis advisory committees), along with access to doctoral school training. Bacteria must rapidly adapt to environmental changes to survive, often modulating their growth state in response. The capacity of bacteria to oscillate between non-replicative non-growing states and replicative proliferative states plays a critical role in pathogenesis and stress responses, making it a prime target for anti-bacterial strategies. However, the molecular mechanisms driving this growth switch remain poorly understood. We use Caulobacter crescentus as a model organism of the a-proteobacteria class to study the impact of the environment on bacterial growth, a powerful representant of the class as (i) Caulobacter cells can be synchronized at the swarmer non-replicative state, (ii) face a growth transition from non-replicative to replicative cells at each cell-cycle during cell differentiation and (iii) this transition is blocked under starvation conditions. While core regulators of growth transitions are known in Caulobacter, upstream regulations, fine-tuning this transition, remain partially understood. Building on high-throughput genetic screens (Tn-seq), our lab has identified candidate genes, as potential regulators connecting environmental sensing to growth regulation to adjust intracellular adaptation to different signals The PhD project consists in characterizing candidate genes using genetic (CRISPRi, mutant construction), biochemical (Western blot, protein interactions), and cell biology (microscopy, flow cytometry) approaches, assess their role under stress conditions to ultimately build a model on how they control the CtrA pathway or parallel routes to modulate growth transitions. Where to apply Website: https://emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/Doctorant/UMR5086-MATGUZ-005/Default.aspx Requirements Research Field: Biological sciences Education Level: PhD or equivalent Languages: FRENCH Level: Basic Research Field: Biological sciences Years of Research Experience: None Additional Information Website for additional job details: https://emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/Doctorant/UMR5086-MATGUZ-005/Default.aspx Work Location(s) Number of offers available: 1 Company/Institute: Microbiologie Moléculaire et Biochimie Structurale Country: France City: LYON 07 Contact City: LYON 07 Website: http://www.ibcp.fr/mmsb/