Sustainable Production of Industrial Chemicals via Engineered Biosynthesis and Fe Catalysis

A PhD studentship is available in the groups of Dr Stephen Thomas and Dr Stephen Wallace (School of Chemistry and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Edinburgh; http://www.thomas.chem.ed.ac.uk/ and http://wallacelab.bio.ed.ac.uk/)

Project Summary
This multidisciplinary project will combine Fe-catalyzed chemical reactions with engineered biosynthetic pathways in the bacterium Escherichia coli. Together, this will enable the sustainable production of a range of industrial small molecules from biologically-available starting materials in a single-flask fermentation. The project offers a unique training environment for the student to gain experience in a broad range of chemical and biological laboratory techniques – including, multi-step organic and organometallic synthesis, molecular biology (gene synthesis, cloning and genome modifications), synthetic biology and the analysis of small molecules produced from bacterial cell cultures (HPLC, NMR, LC-MS).

This project is offered through the EASICAT programme in collaboration with Lubrizol.The successful candidate will be based in the Thomas Lab (School of Chemistry and the Wallace Lab (Institute for Quantitative Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology (IQB3), School of Biological Sciences). A 3-month placement at Lubrizol (Hazelwood) will form part of this PhD.

In the first instance, informal enquiries (accompanied by a CV) should be directed to:
Stephen Thomas ([Email Address Removed]) or Stephen Wallace ([Email Address Removed]).

The position will remain open until filled.

@SPThomasGroup
@Wallace_Lab

Equality and Diversity
The School of Chemistry holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. The University is a member of the Race Equality Charter and is a Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champion, actively promoting LGBT equality. The University has a range of initiatives to support a family friendly working environment. See our University Initiatives website for further information. University Initiatives website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/equality-diversity/help-advice/family-friendly