Candidates are thought for an ISTfellow post to work on structural characterisation of large membrane protein complexes from the domain of bioenergetics.
The group of Professor Leonid Sazanov is interested in the structures and mechanisms of large molecular machines, especially redox proteins relevant to bioenergetics of mitochondria and bacteria, such as components of the respiratory chain. So far the main focus was on complex I, the first and largest enzyme of the respiratory chain, containing up to 80 TM helices and 9 Fe-S clusters. They have determined by X-ray crystallography the first atomic structures of the individual domains of the complex (Science 2005, 2006, Nature 2010, 2011) and of the entire bacterial enzyme (Nature 2013). Recently, using the latest cryo-EM methods, we solved the first complete atomic structure of the ~1 MDa mammalian complex I (Fiedorczuk et al., Nature 2016) and determined the architecture of respiratory supercomplexes (Letts et al., Nature 2016).
They are now interested in defining the intriguing coupling mechanism of complex I using both X-ray and cryo-EM methods, as well as in extending our structural studies to other related enzymes in the respiratory chain and elsewhere.
Applicants with strong publication record and extensive experience in protein purification and sample preparation for cryo-EM or in data collection and processing for single particle analysis are encouraged to apply. Selected candidates will be supported for the prestigious ISTfellow program, a 2-year (extendable) postdoctoral fellowship).
The group are based in the Institute of Science and Technology in Austria, near Vienna. IST Austria is a new institute dedicated to basic research, providing world-class research environment and benefits. Among its EM facilities, IST has a Tecnai-12 microscope with new Fischione cryo-holders, as well as FEI Vitrobot IV, suitable for optimization of sample preparation. For high-resolution data collection, we have access to FEI Polara 300 kV microscope with K2 Summit detector in Vienna Biocenter, as well as regular access to several Titan Krios microscopes in Europe. IST has a modern computer cluster with more than a thousand CPU cores and several GPU nodes, suitable for demanding EM data processing.
All queries and applications with CVs and names of 2-3 academic referees should be forwarded to Prof. Leonid Sazanov, preferably before the 1st of March. Email: sazanov@ist.ac.at.
