A 12-month postdoctoral position with possible extension to 18 months is open within the framework of the ANR program KBT, a collaborative project between the Charles Sadron Institute (M3 Membranes and Microforces group, Strasbourg, France) and the Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques (LCPO, Bordeaux, France).

The development of nanotechnology constantly increases the number of nanoparticles that living cells and organisms are exposed to, raising the question of “nano-safety”. Legitimately, most of existing studies are performed by exposing living organisms and biological cells to a range of nanoparticles. They show that for small enough nanoparticles, these always ultimately cross the natural barriers, i.e. the cell membranes. However, results are often obscured by complex (e.g. active) mechanisms of cellular uptake. There is thus urgent need to answer the more fundamental question of the permeability of phospholipid bilayers to nanoparticles, to distinguish salient and universal features from the ones specific to biological mechanisms.

The purpose of the KBT project is to study the kinetics of translocation of nanoparticles across model membranes. In this context, the Polymer Self-Assembly & Life Sciences group at LCPO is strongly interested in developing hybrid polymer/lipid giant vesicles. Not only these hybrids are excellent to control the ability of nanoparticles to translocate and the time associated with the translocation process, they also offer new routes to tune membrane physical and bio-functional properties.1-3 Self-assembled micro and nanocarriers for drug delivery are indeed at the focus of the research team “Polymer Nanotechnology & Life Science”.

The position is opened to a talented experimental physical-chemist, with a PhD thesis in physical chemistry of polymers or colloids. The candidate needs also to known or to be able to learn basic polymer chemistry. A past experience in the field of membrane obtained by self-assembly (lipid, surfactant, copolymers…) will be highly appreciated. The work involves the formulation of hybrid polymer/lipid vesicles at the giant scale and a complete analysis of their membrane structure (confocal microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry…) and mechanical properties (permeability, bending and stretching elasticity…) using micropipettes techniques, as well as the synthesis of block copolymers by using or modifying existing protocols and the functionnalization of inorganic colloidal particles with various surface coatings (implying characterization by TEM, DLS, TGA...).

Net salary is around 2000€/month, depending on the post-PhD experience.

The KbT projet is funded by the National Research Agency (ANR)

Kinetics of Particle Translocation Across Self- Assembled Bilayers 

Contact: 

Dr Olivier Sandre: osandre@enscbp.fr, Tel: +33 5 4000 3695

Dr Jean-François Le Meins: lemeins@enscbp.fr, Tel: +33 5 4000 36 96

Relevant bibliographic references:

1. Le Meins, J.-F.; Sandre, O.; Lecommandoux, S., Recent trends in the tuning of polymersomes' membrane properties (Colloquium paper). European Physical Journal E 2011, 34, (2), 14 (1-17).

2. Chemin, M.; Brun, P.-M.; Lecommandoux, S.; Sandre, O.; Le Meins, J.-F., Hybrid polymer/lipid vesicles: fine control of the lipid and polymer distribution in the binary membrane. Soft Matter 2012, 8, (10), 2867-2874.

3. Le Meins, J.-F.; Schatz, C.; Lecommandoux, S.; Sandre, O., Hybrid polymer/lipid vesicles: state of the art and future perspectives. Materials Today 2013, 16, (10), 397-402.