Postdoctoral researcher (# of pos: 3)

The Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology (CPSBB) offers the following positions:

Postdoctoral researchers

Occupation: Full-time. Period: Fixed-term contract, funding available for five years.

Apply no later than: September 30, 2022

CPSBB is a plant science research center in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, with the mission to conduct excellent fundamental and applied research in the areas of plant systems biology and biotechnology.

CPSBB is looking for highly motivated postdoctoral scientists to work on the Horizon Europe project NatGenCrop. NatGenCrop aims at improving stress tolerance of major vegetable crops (tomato, pepper, legumes, lettuce) and design new strategies for maintaining higher yields and food quality even during unfavourable weather conditions. One of the major research directions is exploring the wide genetic and phenotypic variations of fleshy (tomato, pepper) and leafy (lettuce) vegetables to improve agronomical traits under abiotic stresses (e.g drought, salinity, and extreme temperatures). A suite of genetics and genomics approaches, such as GWAS in combination with QTL, will be employed to identify genes contributing to high yield and stress tolerance. In another research direction, the fruit metabolic compositions will be characterized in terms of flavour and healthy related compounds to assess the impact of abiotic stress on fruit quality. A wide range of plant phenotypic, and metabolic traits will be evaluated, followed by transcriptomic profiling in two genome-wide association (GWAS) panels and two backcrossed inbred lines (BILs) populations for both tomato and pepper. In addition to genes modulating abiotic stress tolerance, we will also investigate genes with potential roles in disease resistance and genes influencing morphometric and colorimetric traits such as fruit shape, size, and colour in pepper and tomato.

Work place:

The work place will be the CPSBB in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Plovdiv is a modern city with rich history. It is one of the oldest cities in Europe, established in the 6th millennium BCE. Currently, Plovdiv is one of the academic and industrial centers of Bulgaria, home to six Bulgarian universities and several research institutions. Plovdiv is also rich in cultural life and entertainment for young people. The European Commission declared Plovdiv the European Capital of Culture for 2019. CPSBB is an equal opportunity employer.

Job Requirements:

• PhD degree in Bioinformatics, Plant Genetics, Plant Genomics, Plant Molecular Biology, Plant Physiology, or related fields.
• Good scientific background and technical skills documented by publications in high IF journals.
• Excellent English presentation and communication skills (written and oral).

Main responsibilities:

• Conduct own research.
• Supervising PhD students.
• Participation in other project events and activities.

We offer:

• Competitive salary, depending on the level of experience. The salary includes health insurance, pension benefits, and social contributions from the employer and the employee.
• Work and career development in a young, ambitious and internationally competitive research team.
• State-of-the-art equipment and facilities for plant research.
• Opportunity for collaboration with leading EU partner institutions.
• Funding is available at the beginning of 2023.

Deadline for application: 30 September 2022

Applicants interested in the position should send the following documents:

• Application letter including a statement about why you apply for this position.
• CV including a list of published and accepted publications.
• Contact information, including email addresses, of a minimum of two reference persons (your previous employers or/and supervisors).

Send your application documents as a single pdf-file. For more information, please visit the CPSBB website