An 18month postdoctoral position is open to work on the physics of virus selfassembly. This is a joint project between the Laboratory for SolidState Physics (Guillaume Tresset) and the Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (Stéphane Bressanelli) at the Université ParisSaclay in France.
   The successful candidate will be either a soft matter physicist with interest in biological systems or a biochemist with interest in physics approaches. He/she will work with viral capsid proteins, RNA and synthetic polyelectrolytes. An experience with scattering techniques (SAXS/SANS) will be favorably considered.

  Singlestranded (ss)RNA viruses are major public health issues (e.g. hepatitis C, Dengue, and Zika viruses) as well as serious economic and veterinary concerns worldwide. ssRNA viruses have in common a simple protein nanoshell – the capsid – surrounding and protecting the RNA genome. Some simple ssRNA viruses can selfassemble in vitro forming infectious particles from purified components. There are currently no physical models accounting reliably for the dynamic pathways along which the hundreds of molecular building blocks making up a virus fit into the final structure with a pinpoint accuracy.

  This project aims at elucidating the dynamic pathways of genome packaging into icosahedral viral nanoshells. The latter will be derived from plant viruses that have been used for physical and nanotechnological investigations. RNA with different lengths as well as synthetic polyelectrolytes with varying charge density and topology will be packaged in vitro through a selfassembly process. The dynamics will be probed with cuttingedge ensembleaveraging techniques including timeresolved smallangle Xray scattering (TRSAXS) with high brilliance synchrotron source supplemented by custommade algorithms for data processing [1,2]. Smallangle neutron scattering (SANS) and cryotransmission electron microscopy (cryoTEM) will provide complementary information at equilibrium. We expect to catch the transition states occurring over a few tens of milliseconds and to reconstruct the structure of intermediate species with nanometer resolution.

[1] D. LawHine et al., Reconstruction of the disassembly pathway of an icosahedral viral capsid and shape determination of two successive intermediates, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 6 (2015) 34713476
[2] G. Tresset et al., Norovirus capsid proteins selfassemble through biphasic kinetics via longlived stavelike intermediates, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135 (2013) 1537315381

Monthly gross salary: starting from ㈠500

Any doctors interested in this position contact Prof. Guillaume TRESSET by email: guillaume.tresset@u-psud.fr . You can have more information about Prof. Guillaume Tresset and this position by visiting website: https://www.equipes.lps.u-psud.fr/TRESSET/

PS: Prof. TRESSET is an easy going person. 返回小木虫查看更多