Rapid plasmonic detection of food spoilage organisms in finished dairy products

Project description: We are seeking highly motivated applicants for a multidisciplinary 3-year PhD studentship funded by the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Innovative European Training Network (MCSA-ITN-ETN-2016) programme through the EU project FoodSmartPhone (www.foodsmartphone.eu ).Within this project, the student will focus on the development of a rapid, novel smart-phone based system to detect food spoilage organisms. The project will involve (1) the identification and production of binding elements for major food spoilage organisms; (2) Development of smartphone-compatible sensing technology based on amplified aggregation of plasmonic nanoparticles; (3) Testing of a range of dairy products to determine capability of measuring device compared with conventional techniques.

Supervisors: The student will work under the supervision of Dr Cuong Cao and Prof. Christopher Elliott (Institute for Global Food Security, School of Biological Sciences). Technical and advisory supports can be further provided by other members of the supervision team (Dr Huiyu Zhou (Institute of Electronics, Communications & Information Technology, School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) and Dr Katrina Campbell (Institute for Global Food Security, School of Biological Sciences).

Requirements: The successful applicant must meet the MSCA-ITN eligibility criteria. Please ensure that you qualify before applying, as ineligible candidates cannot be considered:
1. Applicants should NOT have resided or performed their main activity (work, studies, etc) in the country of the host institution for more than 12 months in the 3 year period immediately prior to the start date of the PhD research.
2. Applicants for the ESR PhD positions should be in the first 4 years (full-time equivalent) of their research careers and not yet have been awarded a doctorate. This 4 year period is measured from the date of obtaining the degree which would formally entitle to embark on a doctorate.
3. Applicants MUST be able and willing to travel to mandatory and voluntary training at the partner organisations located within Europe involved in this MCSA-ITN-ETN-2016 project.

In addition, the successful applicant should have:
1. 1st class or 2.1 Honour Degree or equivalent in biomedical engineering, microbiology, analytical chemistry, chemical engineering, applied physics or related disciplines.
2. Demonstrable and/or hand-on experience on synthesis, functionalization, characterization, and/or self-assembly of plasmonic nanoparticles.
3. Demonstrable and/or hand-on experience on of molecular diagnostics
4. An interest in smartphone-based point-of-care diagnostics.