CERMAV is a research institute devoted to the study of oligo- and polysaccharides, from their biological role to structural analysis. The "glycomaterials" group is specialised in the investigation of crystalline polysaccharides with a great number of tools like Electron Microscopy, X-Ray diffraction or solid state NMR. We offer a post-doc position opened for 1 year funded by an ANR program that groups several research groups in Grenoble and Toulouse.
The objective of the project is to understand the role of chitooligosaccharides (COs) present in the cell wall of pathogenic fungi Aphanomyces euteiches. that causes severe damage in legume crops. These COs are essential for cell wall integrity and are exposed at the cell surface. The nature of the amorphous and crystalline cell wall polysaccharides, their
structural and functional links accounting for cell wall physical properties and integrity, and
the nature of the exposed chitosaccharides, remain to be determined.
In that context, the role of our group is to set-up a purification procedure by preparative chromatography and to achieve structural studies, mainly by liquid and solid state NMR, but most probably combined with Electron Microscopy studies. In order to have the most precise information, 2D-NMR will be performed on the crude cell wall after an isotopic labelling that will be done by the biologists group in Toulouse.
The candidate should be a biophysicist, a chemist or a biochemist that have a PhD, in which he (she) has extensively used modern NMR techniques. Knowledge in biochemistry will be appreciated but is not mandatory. Solid state NMR could be learned during the post-doc.
Send a CV and a short cover letter to Laurent Heux, heux@cermav.cnrs.fr, please type the reference number in the title.
