CCMAR​/BINCGAL​/Research Fellowship; M​/F | Molecular Biology and Microbiology

Research Fellowship (M/F)

The Centre for Marine Sciences (CCMAR) opens one (01) Research Fellowship for a person with a Bachelor Degree (Bolsa de Investigação não conducente à obtenção de grau académico para licenciado), for applicants of any nationality, including stateless candidates, and holders of political refugee statute, in the scientific field of Molecular Biology and Microbiology within the research project number .RESTART - named as PROCOAST: "Producers & Toxicity Assessment of Tetrodotoxin and analogues on the Portuguese Coast", funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the programme RESTART 2nd edition, under the following conditions:

1. Host and Contracting Institution: CCMAR

This fellowship is intended for Bachelor Degree holders that are enrolled in a non-academic degree course, integrated in the educational project of a higher education institution and developed in association or cooperation with one or more R&D units at the starting date of the fellowship.

2. Work Plan, Tasks to perform and objectives: PROCOAST targets identifying Tetrodotoxin (TTX) producing bacteria responsible for Portuguese marine organisms' contamination and assessing the temperature impact on TTX production. Additionally, it seeks to isolate and evaluate the toxicity of TTXs with unknown potency.

The fellowship holder will work under the supervision and guidance of the supervisors. Training will be provided, and the plan will be developed to contribute to the following tasks:

Task I: Analyse microbial diversity in trumpet shell and starfish digestive systems. Task II: Identify and isolate potential TTX-producing bacteria. Task III: Investigate the influence of temperature on TTX production by bacteria.

Detailed work plan: Extraction of RNA/DNA from samples and perform molecular and expression analysis;
Develop PCRs for detection of target species/genes;
Handling, analysis and interpretation of microbiome data;
Isolate, establish and maintain bacterial cultures;
Extraction and analysis of Tetrodotoxin using LC-HRMS;
Contribute to scientific paper writing and supervision of undergraduate students and general laboratory organization and daily routines;
Attend international conferences with oral/poster communications;
Contribute to the organization of biotoxins experts meeting.

3. Scientific Supervisor:
Doctor Sandra Lage, Group leader at CCMAR, Coordinator of the project, Invited assistant Professor at University of Algarve and Auxiliary Researcher at CCMAR, Doctor Aschwin Hillebrand Engelen, Group Leader and Auxiliary Researcher at CCMAR and Doctor Tânia Aires, Junior Researcher at CCMAR.

4. Work place:
The workplace is CCMAR (Gambelas Campus of the Algarve University, Faro, Portugal) and other places necessary for the execution of the work plan.

5. Requirements for the application:
Applicants must meet all the conditions stated below:

1. Bachelor´s degree in Biology, Microbiology, Marine Sciences, or related area;
2. Good knowledge of written and spoken English;
3. Availability to work on weekends, holidays, and after regular business hours as needed to complete the ongoing experiments.

Non-compliance justifies exclusion from the procedure.

It is considered as an advantage:

Preference will be given to applicants with previous experience in:

Molecular biology techniques for nucleic acid extraction, analysis and amplification;
The establishment and maintenance of bacterial cultures;
In the usage of bioinformatic tools and in the analysis of microbiome data;
Analysis with liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS);
This fellowship will only be granted to those who do not exceed, with the conclusion of the present fellowship contract, an accumulated period of two years in this type of fellowship, consecutive or otherwise, and this information should be explicitly stated in the candidate's CV.

In the event of a tie between candidates during the selection process, this argument may be used to select the candidates.

6. Evaluation criteria:
Through the analysis of the application documents the evaluation criteria for the applications and their relative weight for ranking are as…