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University of Lausanne invites candidates to apply for PhD or Postdoctoral positions in Renal Research...
Hypertension is the most common disease in the human population, affecting over 1 billion individuals worldwide, and one of the major treatable risk factors for cardiovascular diseases including stroke, myocardial infarcts, heart and kidney failure. The focus of our research concerns the salt handling by the kidney that critically affects blood pressure. In this context, the mineralocorticoid aldosterone is the main hormone involved in the regulation of sodium homeostasis. In this context, the aldosterone-sensitive distal nephron (ASDN) that includes the distal convoluted tubule (DCT), the connecting tubule (CNT), and the collecting duct (CD), precisely tunes the sodium balance of the blood by regulating transepithelial sodium transport via a number of Na+ transporting proteins, including the thiazide-sensitive Na+,Cl--cotransporter (NCC) in the DCT and the epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC) in the DCT/CNT/CD. Research in our laboratory has provided strong in vivo and in vitro evidence that the primary pathways controlling these systems involve both ubiquitylation and phosphorylation.
We are seeking outstanding and highly motivated candidates at the PhD or postdoctoral level within the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology (DPT) of the University in Lausanne, Switzerland. The proposed projects involve novel signaling pathways that control transepithelial sodium transport, affecting both NCC and ENaC. Techniques include the in vivo biochemical and physiological analysis of new, conditional knockout mice models, combined with in vitro experimental approaches (cell biology, molecular biology, and electrophysiology) in various cell lines and/or Xenopus laevis oocytes.
Our laboratory (http://www.unil.ch/dpt) is a member of the Transatlantic Network of Hypertension (http://tnh.bio-med.ch) and the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) in kidney research (http://www.nccr-kidney.ch). The DPT is a dynamic institute with international and interactive groups and with access to world-class facilities. The working languages are English and French. Moreover, Lausanne is a beautiful city on the Lake of Geneva offering excellent opportunities for cultural and outdoor activities.
PhD or Postdoctoral Positions in Renal Research
Author: Per Freibergs
Published: 2012-03-30
The Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research invites candidates to apply to the recently opened Senior Scientist tenure position...
NIOZ, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is the Dutch national marine science institute and among the most renowned internationally. Approximately 330 scientists, lab assistants, technicians, ship’s crew and auxiliary staff collaborate in world-leading marine research. NIOZ acquires and disseminates scientific knowledge on the world’s oceans and seas. Our multidisciplinary research is carried out in 6 scientific departments, which are distributed over two facilities in the south (NIOZ Yerseke) and the north of the Netherlands (NIOZ Texel). The open position is located at NIOZ-Texel in the Marine Geology department on the barrier island Texel in the Dutch Wadden Sea. NIOZ also houses the National Marine Research Facilities for academic marine sciences in The Netherlands and has a dedicated department for marine electronics and offering a full suite of sea going instruments (landers, traps, corers, hydroacoustics, CTD etc.).
The GEO department (GEO; www.nioz.nl/geo ) is active in ocean-wide marine research. Themes include past to modern climatic and environmental forcing using core records from marine sediments and warm-water corals. Moored time-series instrumentation is used for budgeting modern sediment transports in canyons to cold-water corals and from rivers onto continental margins. For that purpose, GEO operates state-of-the-art instruments including advanced XRF/UV-core scanning, laser grain sizing, stable isotope analysis of carbonates (MAT 253 with Carbo-Kiel), radionuclide spectrometry (for 210Pb and 234Th), and element analysis (Element-2 HR-ICP-MS) in a class-7 clean lab. Studies about methane seepage and possible impacts of increased release by Arctic warming are combined with analyses of water column and atmospheric CH4 and CO2 by GC and CRDS, both of which are employed during cruises on a regular basis. The department has strong links with the technical department at NIOZ to broaden the existing expertise on deep sea landers, moorings, coring and hydroacoustics.
For our GEO department we are looking for an established scientist with an excellent track record for publishing and acquiring external funding to fill a senior scientist tenure position.
Successful candidates need to have a broad knowledge of inorganic geochemistry, and given the existing equipment pool, co-develop new methodologies. He/she should be experienced in deciphering paleoclimatological/environmental and geochemical conditions from sediment and rock records. NIOZ wishes to stimulate research directed towards societal questions regarding effects and consequences of increasing atmospheric CO2 and ocean acidification as well as towards siliciclastic sediment records, e.g. isotopic changes relating burial history to hinterland transport processes during climate change.
Experience in ocean going research cruises is an advantage. Candidates should also have a significant marine research funding track record and should be open to taking part in PR and Outreach activities, besides developing contacts with Dutch universities. NIOZ stimulates Marine Research in the Netherlands in general and NIOZ staff is invited to participate in teaching activities at all levels.
Senior scientist tenure position
Author: Per Freibergs
Published: 2012-02-28
ESS in Lund will become Sweden's largest research facility, and create 1000's of jobs
2013 the largest research facility in Sweden, ESS, will begin construction outside of Lund. ESS stands for "European Spallation Source" and will be the world's most powerful neutron source in 10 years time. ESS can be associated to a microscope and will be a research center funded by several European countries.
Approximately 450 scientists and engineers will be needed to eventually operate the facilties. There will also be a need for housing, schools and surrounding businesses.
Read more about the wide research project ESS and what it will mean for Swedish research on research site forskning.se.
Author: Carolina Löfstrand
Published: 2012-02-17
URL: ESS in Lund will become Sweden's largest research facility, and create 1000's of jobs
Delft University of Technology takes Perfect chemical reactors one step further...
The project presents a pioneering step towards transferring some fundamental concepts of chemical physics and molecular reaction dynamics into the engineering science of chemical reactors. It aims at the development of structured reactors, in which reaction efficiency will be drastically increased by local control of alignment, orientation and activation of molecules. In the project we pursue the use of alternative forms and transfer mechanisms of energy (such as laser, electric or microwave fields) in a controlled milli- or microreactor environment. We will build on the Nobel Prize-awarded fundamental works in the area of the reaction dynamics and molecular reaction control (Herschbach, Lee and Polanyi, 1986), which were never considered in the chemical engineering field thus far.
The control of chemical reaction pathways at molecular level presents undoubtedly the most important scientific challenge on the way to fully sustainable, thermodynamically-efficient chemical processes. The most obvious advantages of enhanced molecular reaction control are i) higher reaction rates leading to low-temperature processes and smaller equipment, ii) better selectivities leading to minimization or elimination of waste, iii) reduction of separation operations, which are responsible for circa 40% of energy consumption in chemical and related industries, and iv) the possibility for tailored manufacturing of new, advanced products. An excellent example of such enhanced molecular control can be seen in the fundamental work by the group of Richard Zare at Stanford, where the application of a laser field for the excitation and “stretching” of the C-H bond in methane molecule during its chlorination introduced the so-called “stripping” collisions increasing the reaction rate by a factor of more than 100 (Kandel and Zare, 1998). This clearly proves that a targeted introduction of an alternative energy form can improve the reaction performance dramatically. It can enable getting far beyond the limits of the “conventional inherent kinetics” which is based on the macroscopic temperature, pressure and concentrations.
Factors responsible for the effectiveness of a reaction include: number/frequency of molecular collisions, geometry of approach, mutual orientation of molecules at the moment of collisions and their energy. Unfortunately, current chemical reactors offer a very limited degree of control of molecular-level events. In order to bring more molecules at the energy levels exceeding the activation energy threshold conductive heating is conventionally applied. However, conductive heating offers only a macroscopic control upon the process and is thermodynamically inefficient. It is non-selective in nature, which means that non-reacting (bulk) molecules heat up together with the reacting ones. Also, other elements of the reactor are unnecessarily heated up. Secondly, the conductive heating generates temperature gradients, which creates a broad Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecular energy levels. I illustrate that problem with a simplified example shown in Figure 1. 
In a conventional system with temperature gradients, the energy of molecules is distributed. In case of a parallel reaction scheme of the type shown in the figure, where P is the required product, a part of molecules (A) has energy insufficient to pass the transition state P*. Another part (B) has sufficient energy to get over the threshold and form product P. A large portion of these molecules has in fact more energy than it is needed to form P. Finally, there are molecules in the pool that possess enough energy to generate also the transition state W* which eventually leads to the formation of the unwanted waste product W. Ideally, one should provide all molecules with a narrowly distributed amount of energy, just exceeding the potential energy level of P*, as it is illustrated by the dashed curve D.
It is clear that in order to meet the future needs of the sustainable world, a new generation of chemical reactors, which I call here “perfect reactors”, must emerge. A groundbreaking solution in those reactors will consist in creating a reaction environment, in which the geometry of molecular collisions is controlled while energy is transferred selectively from the source to the required molecules in the required form, in the required amount, at the required moment, and at the required position (Fig. 2). Creating such “perfect” reaction environment will in turn require several basic functions to be integrated in the reactor, including:
-removal of molecules not participating in the reaction
-equalizing molecular trajectories and velocities, minimization of random motions
-spatial orientation of molecules
-controlled activation of the molecules
-control of energy distribution among the reaction products
- instantaneous removal of the reaction products 
The enhanced control of molecular collisions in perfect reactors addresses directly the first of the four generic principles of Process Intensification: maximize the effectiveness of intra- and intermolecular events (Van Gerven and Stankiewicz, 2009). However, perfect chemical reactors need to address the other three principles as well:
-They need to provide each molecule with the same processing experience since processes in which all molecules undergo the same history, deliver ideally uniform products with minimum waste. This means reduction of the macroscopic residence time distribution, dead zones, bypassing, and temperature gradients on one hand and enhancement of meso- and micromixing on the other hand. It can be easily shown that most of the reactor concepts developed thus far come short of this principle.
-They need to optimize the driving forces at every scale and maximize the specific interfacial areas to which those forces apply. This enables optimum transport rates across interfaces.
- They need to maximize the synergistic effects from partial processes. An example of such synergistic effects can be seen in reactive separations, where the reaction equilibrium is shifted by removing the products in-situ from the reaction environment.
The challenges depicted in Figure 2 are obviously not new to the science and have been addressed by numerous fundamental research works in the field of chemical physics, using various forms of energy to align, orient and excite chemical molecules. An example of such fundamental research approach is shown in Figure 3, where carbonyl sulphide molecules are first aligned and oriented in an electric field and then dissociated by a laser beam. However, no attempts of developing reactor concepts directly addressing the above challenges have been made so far.
Fig. 3. (A) - Orientation of a molecular beam of carbonyl sulphide molecules moving along the z-axis by a hexapole electric field (left) followed by their dissociation by a laser beam acting along the x-axis (from Rakitzis, et al, 2004); (B) - Probability plot of the molecular orientation of the OCS molecule; dotted arrows are proportional to the orientation probability of the OCS dipole moment along each direction.
The main objective and the ambition of the project is to make a groundbreaking step towards the perfect chemical reactors. The project addresses two basic challenges depicted in Figure 2 and focuses on engineering the enhanced control of molecular alignment, orientation and activation in spatially structured reactors consisting of arrays of milli- or microchannels, using different forms of electric or electromagnetic fields or combinations thereof.
More specifically, new concepts of reactors will be developed, in which the molecular alignment and orientation are controlled by the laser or by the electric field, or combination thereof, while the molecules are activated by
-the laser field,
-the light generated via in-situ nano-illumination of the catalyst, or
- the locally applied microwave field.
The methodology put forward in the project is entirely novel and consists in simultaneous and multi-scale application of the selected concepts of Process Intensification in four domains: spatial, thermodynamic, functional and temporal (Van Gerven and Stankiewicz, 2009). Table 1 summarizes those concepts and presents the corresponding argumentation.
Table 1. Concepts of Process Intensification relevant for development of perfect chemical reactors addressed by the present proposal
The project consists of two closely related phases. The first phase, which comprises two 2-year postdoctoral research activities, focuses on the control of molecular alignment, orientation and activation in milli- or micro-channels using laser and electric field as means for controlling molecules. Both research activities are expected to generate fundamental knowledge concerning the behaviour of the molecules moving in confined regular channels subjected to external fields. The second phase, which comprises three 4-year PhD research activities, focuses on the development of structured-reactor concepts with molecular activation control by means of the laser field, the in-situ nano-illumination of the catalysts and the locally applied microwave field, respectively.
In the project we focus on three molecules: H2O, CO2 and CH4. The reasons for this choice are fivefold:
-these molecules are simple and their properties are well described;
-they represent three out of four classes of molecules with regard to the rotational behaviour: linear (CO2); spherical tops (CH4) and asymmetric tops (H2O);
-the orientation and excitation of these molecules can be manipulated by external energy fields (e.g. Metz, et al., 1993; Kandel and Zare, 1998);
-reactions of these molecules are either monomolecular or bimolecular and present very good models for the experimental studies intended in this project;
- reactions of these molecules, which deliver hydrogen or synthesis gas, are of paramount importance for solving the sustainability issues concerning clean fuels and CO2 management; they include methane steam and dry reforming, water splitting and carbon dioxide splitting.
References
Herschbach, D. R., 1986, Nobel Prize Lecture.
Kandel, S.A., Zare, R. N., 1998, J. Chem. Phys, 109, 9719.
Lee, Y. T., 1986, Nobel Prize Lecture.
Metz, R. B., Thoemke, J. D., Pfeiffer, J. M., Crim, F. F., 1993, J. Chem. Phys., 99, 1744.
Polanyi, J. C., 1986, Nobel Prize Lecture.
Rakitzis, T. P., Van den Brom, A. L., Janssen, M. H., 2004, Science, 303, 1852.
Van Gerven, T., Stankiewicz, A., 2009, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 48, 2465.
Author: Prof. A. Stankiewicz
Published: 2012-02-14
URL: Delft University of Technology takes Perfect chemical reactors one step further...
Applications Now Open for Opportunities for Excellence
On February 1st, 2012, a new applications round will start for «Opportunities for Excellence», a prestigious fellowship program provided by the Biozentrum and the Werner Siemens Foundation (WSF). This program enables highly qualified Master of Science graduates from around the world to undertake their doctoral studies in the field of «Molecular Life Sciences» at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. Applications are invited till June 30th, 2012.
It is the goal of «Opportunities for Excellence» to foster and further talented young scientists from around the world by providing them with the exceptional opportunity to carry out their PhD project in the field of “Molecular Life Sciences“ in Basel. This program is co-financed by the Werner Siemens Foundation (WSF).
International PhD program at the Biozentrum
The «Opportunities for Excellence» program gives successful applicants direct access to the international PhD program at the Biozentrum. This provides the unique chance to become acquainted with various research groups from the five research areas (Infection Biology, Growth & Development, Neurobiology, Structural Biology & Biophysics, Computational & Systems Biology) before deciding on a PhD project. Scientific meetings and courses as well as generous financial support are included in the program.
Admission and Application Procedure
Interested students are invited to apply online until 30th June, 2012. The best candidates will then be invited to the Biozentrum in the week from 28th to 31st August, 2012 to present themselves at personal interviews. Applications will be accepted from candidates who hold a university degree or equivalent (MSc, Diploma, DEA etc.), which qualifies them to enter a PhD program in their home country or who expect to have this degree by the time of enrolment.
Further Information:
www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/wsf
PhD positions International PhD program in Molecular Life Sciences
Author: Per Freibergs
Published: 2012-02-13
URL: Applications Now Open for Opportunities for Excellence
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