Postdoctoral position Nantes France

We are seeking highly qualified and motivated applicants with a Ph.D. at the time of employment. The post-doctoral position is funded by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) for one year, possibly for two years if renewal is allowed, and is available immediately. Please if you are interested in this position reply to Cedric Gaillard at cedric.gaillard(aÖnantes.inra.fr . The candidate should have a Ph.D. in chemistry or materials science or biology and mainly a strong background in scanning probe techniques and surface chemistry of AFM tips. ______________________________________ Description: AFM / Fluorescence correlative microscopy for the imaging of proteins at the interface of stabilized emulsions. Newly CEPIA research division funded post-doctoral position is available to investigate the building-up mechanisms of arrangement of proteins involved in the stabilisation of emulsions. The direct localisation of individual macromolecules remains an important challenge to elucidate their fine organisation at the nanometric scale and to connect it to the properties of the macroscopic systems formed by the assembly of the macromolecules. The complementarity of fluorescence detection and atomic force microscopy holds great promise for investigation of any systems where the arrangement of biopolymers determines the macroscopic properties. In this project, combined AFM and fluorescence microscopy experiments will be performed to get the detection of two families of proteins localized at the interface of emulsions. For that, a simple interface will be considered as a model in which a bovine protein and a vegetal protein are used for the stabilization of a water/oil emulsion. Then, two parallel strategies of chemical modifications will been developed. Firstly, AFM tips will be functionalized with antibodies to allow specific AFM detection of the corresponding proteins at the interface. Secondly, aqueous-soluble semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots) with specific size and fluorescence emission will be covalently bound to the proteins. Our strategy that will be developed by the candidate is then based, in a third step, on the simulataneous detection by fluorescence of individual proteins, previously coupled with home- made quantum dots, and on AFM imaging using AFM cantilevers chemically-modified with pure and specific antibodies. Nanomechanical properties of the individual proteins and of the corresponding antibodies will also be separatively probed by force spectroscopy to get information about the forces and kinetics involved in the breaking of ligand – receptor bonds. Dr. Cédric Gaillard U.R. Biopolymčres Interactions Assemblages INRA - BP 71 627 Rue de la Géraudičre 44 316 Nantes Cedex 3 cedric.gaillard(a)nantes.inra.fr

Postdoctoral position Nantes France

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