Doctorado en evolución experimental en Suiza

PhD position in Experimental Evolution

The recently formed group of Dr. Macarena Toll-Riera is seeking a PhD
student to study bacterial adaptation to environmental changes through the
combination of experimental and high-throughput sequencing approaches. We
are hosted at the Institute of Integrative Biology (ETH Zurich), in the
Professorship of Evolutionary Biology.

Project background
Environments are under constant change and one of the main strategies
that organisms have to respond to these changes is through evolutionary
adaptations. Although evolutionary adaptations have been studied for long
time, the genetic bases underpinning them are still not fully understood.

Most research done to understand how organisms adapt to changes in their
environments has been done using model organisms. In this project,
instead, we propose to study this question using a bacterium isolated
from Antarctica. To survive to the harsh conditions found in cold
environments, this bacterium has a unique set of adaptations that makes
it a very interesting model organism to study the molecular mechanisms
that can facilitate, or limit, adaptation to novel environments.

Job description
The candidate will investigate the role that enzyme promiscuity and large
genome duplications have on facilitating adaptation to environmental
changes. As a proxy to environmental change, she/he will use a large array
of carbon sources and will perform laboratory evolution experiments to
challenge bacteria to adapt to novel environments. She/he will couple
laboratory evolution experiments to next generation sequencing to
disentangle which are the genetic changes underlying adaptation.

We offer 4 years of funding and to be part of a small, but collaborative
and dynamic group. We are hosted at the Institute of Integrative
Biology, ETH Zurich. The candidate will benefit from a vibrant and
interdisciplinary academic environment with excellent opportunities for
education, training and collaboration. Aside from the high quality of
life, Zurich provides easy access to outdoor activities.

Your profile
The successful candidate should hold a master degree in a relevant
area such as evolutionary biology, microbiology or genomics, have a
genuine interest in evolutionary biology and have a good command of
English. Wet-lab experience, ideally in microbiology, programming skills
and experience analysing next-generation sequencing data are an asset.

The candidate should be highly motivated, enthusiastic, curious and able
to work independently but also as a team member.

Interested?
We look forward to receiving your application with the following
documents: motivation letter, CV, academic records, and contact
information for 2-3 potential references. Please send your
application (one single PDF file) by email to Macarena Toll-Riera
(macarena.toll@env.ethz.ch). We will start to revise applications on
20th of December, until position is filled.

Starting date: preferably February-March 2020.