12-month post-doctoral position announcement at Saclay, near Paris, at CEA.
Towards a better understanding of gases encapsulation in cage-molecules by NMR and computational chemistry approaches
Dissolved gases are of great importance in various fields of biology (e.g. oxygen, carbon dioxide), medicine (e.g. hyperpolarized 129Xe for MRI applications) and environmental sciences (e.g. green house gas emission like methane or carbon dioxide). Since 2009, the laboratory is involved in a project that aims at a better understanding of hydrophobic interactions of dissolved gases in water through their encapsulation in synthetic cage-molecules. Only a few empirical rules governing the reversible gas receptor interactions are admitted and very little theoretical works have been reported in the literature. In this context, a 12-month postdoctoral position is available at CEA/IRAMIS in Saclay (France, near Paris) under the supervision of Gaspard HUBER, Patrick BERTHAULT and Jean-Pierre DOGNON.
The post-doctoral fellow will be involved in two joined aspects. First, he/she will have to devise and perform NMR experiments designed to acquire reliable kinetic and thermodynamic data, as well as instructive NMR parameters, for various dissolved gases (e.g. small alkanes and noble gases) and cage-molecules (varying size, shape, electronegativity, steric hindrance within two cage-molecule families : cryptophanes and cucurbiturils). Second, he/she will be involved in a computational chemistry approach, mandatory for the interpretation of NMR results. Both aspects should result in the formulation of new laws on gases complexation and on the proposal of new cage molecules, synthesized by our colleagues chemists involved in the project.
The candidate should have good skills in liquid NMR spectroscopy and chemical physics. An experience in computational chemistry would be greatly appreciated. Knowledge in statistics, useful for the determination of experimental errors, would also be valuable.
The position can start from December 2011. The monthly salary is ca. 2200 € (before tax). Interested candidates should send a CV and two recommendation letters to gaspard.huber@cea.fr.
