Applications are invited for a 4-year PhD student or a 3-year postdoctoral research position, starting as soon as possible, in the research group of Prof. Matthias Heinemann, (https://www.heinemannlab.eu) at the Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute. We have a PhD position in Protein and RNA structural changing during the eukaryotic cell cycle as well: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-02S000986P

The eukaryotic cell cycle is a fascinating research topic. While we know many of the cell biological changes and biochemical control mechanisms, it turns out that there is still so much that we do not understand. For instance, we just recently showed that also metabolism is dynamic during the cell cycle, and a metabolic oscillator might even exert cell cycle control (Papagiannakis et al, 2017, Molecular Cell; Litsios et al, 2019, Nature Cell Biology).

In this project, we will use budding yeast as a model and latest experimental high-throughput methods to map the structural changes of proteins and RNA during the cell cycle. For this, we will make us limited-digestion mass spectrometry (LiP-MS) to determine the cell cycle-dependent changes in protein structures and in vivo structural probing to determine RNA changes. Therefore, we will collaborate with the two labs who have pioneered these techniques. The identified structural changes will provide us clues on how, for instance, our earlier identified metabolic changes might be accomplished in terms of regulation.