Postdoctoral Position in Development of Clusters of Compartments for Bio-applications

Your position

The overall aim of this project is the development of interconnected compartments loaded with molecules (enzymes, growing factors, proteins, contrast agents) to serve as a platform for bioapplications (e.g. regenerative medicine, bio-sensing). Synthetic compartments produced by microfluidics will be decorated with single strands DNA and then will be self-organized in clusters via DNA hybridization. When separately loaded with different molecules, the resulting custers will dock on cells and promote a dual functionality (e.g. imaging and therapeutic). A particularly important part of the project will intend to decorate the clusters with different DNA strands and evaluate their
overall architecture and interaction with cell lines. In addition, structural characterization and functionality assays of the cargos encapsulated in the compartments represent a prerequisite for development of specific bio-applications.

This is an interdisciplinary project within the National Center of Competence in Research “Molecular Systems Engineering” from which you will gain valuable experience in the domain of nanoscience, physical chemistry, biochemistry and regenerative medicine. Your role will be to self-assembly the compartments, load them with biomolecules and control them to form stable clusters that specifically interact with cells. More information on the topics of the group in which you will be working can be found at https://palivan.chemie.unibas.ch/en/