Revealing the inner workings of bacterial cell division by super-resolution microscopy

Do you want to join an exciting international collaboration to redefine our understanding of bacterial cell division? Do you want to combine bacterial cell biology, super-resolution microscopy and nanotechnology to solve fundamental medically relevant problems in microbiology?

What scientific question will you investigate?

How does a bacterium divide? Not only is this one of the most basic questions we can ask about a living organism, but it is also important for medicine and biosciences, since bacterial cell division is a key antibiotic target.

Bacteria divide by building a partition wall along the cell centreline against a high outwards pressure, like cutting an inflated balloon in two without bursting it. We recently discovered that the machinery responsible for cutting bacteria in two works like lots of nanoscale worms crawling around a ring at the middle of the cell, leaving behind a trail of bricks that pile up to form a partition wall (Bisson Filho et al, Science 2017). Precisely, we found that in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, treadmilling cytoskeletal FtsZ filaments move around mid-cell, driving the motion of the cell wall synthesis complexes which build the cell’s dividing crosswall.

However, we do not yet know how this motile cell division complex actually works. You will achieve this by applying cutting edge methods to a fundamental problem in bacterial cell biology. You will use super-resolution microscopy in live bacteria, combined with microfluidics and microtechnology, to define the organization of the bacterial cell division machine, in partnership with a team of leading international collaborators (UK, USA, Netherlands).

What will you be doing for your PhD research?

You will perform highly interdisciplinary work, working between microbiology and advanced microscopy. This will include using super-resolution microscopy to measure the motion and stoichiometry of division proteins at the molecular level, creation and genetic manipulation Bacillus subtilis strains containing fluorescently-labelled cell division proteins, microfluidic perturbation and microstructured immobilization of bacteria.

What training will you receive?

You will join an exciting multidisciplinary international collaboration of bacterial cell biologists/ advanced microscopists (Newcastle, UK), nanotechnologists (Delft, Netherlands), biochemists (Liverpool, UK) and cytoskeleton biologists (Harvard, USA). You will gain experience of each of these disciplines, with a particular focus on bacterial cell biology and super-resolution microscopy.

Is this project right for you?
We are seeking someone with a good degree in a relevant field, e.g. microbiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, biomedical sciences, biological physics, physics.

For further information see the website: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/camb/