The University of Groningen (UG) is a highly international and renowned center of higher education located in the north of the Netherlands. Groningen is a vibrant and international student city (1 in 4 of the ~220k inhabitants is a student, and 1 in 4 students is international) located ~2 h northeast of Amsterdam and the UG ranks among the world’s top institutes. English is ubiquitously spoken in the Netherlands, and the university provides free language courses.

The Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute (GBB), one of the larger institutes of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE), provides an excellent environment for top-notch research in the field of biomolecular sciences. The GBB contains twelve vibrant Departments with strong roots in biochemistry, biophysical chemistry, cell biology, computational biology, genetics, microbiology, molecular biology, and systems biology.

Job description
The group of Dr. Sonja Billerbeck has an open position for a four-year PhD project.

This PhD position is part of a recently funded EIC Pathfinder Challenge that will be realized within an inter-European collaboration with two companies and one academic partner.

We aim to develop a microbial platform for the carbon net-zero production of dairy proteins, using engineered hydrogen oxidizing bacteria (eHOB). In this way, CO2 and later also N2 will be valorized into food-safe proteins, and thus completely disconnected from agriculture.
The main milk component, beta-lactoglobulin, was chosen as the first product but the platform is in principle modular and extendable to other products.

A successful candidate will – together with a postdoctoral researcher who will be hired on the same project – develop advanced genetic and genomic engineering tools for hydrogen oxidizing bacteria and will apply these tools to build an efficient cell factory for protein secretion using the Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle. Our industrial and academic partners will complement these efforts via metabolic modeling and in-silico cell-factory design, high-throughput screening, and scaling to a real-world process.
This position is an exciting opportunity to work closely with industry to develop cutting-edge technologies towards a sustainable zero-carbon bio-economy.

The Billerbeck lab is interested in engineering yeast and bacteria towards applications in human health, agriculture and the bio-economy.
The Lab is embedded within the Department of Molecular Microbiology (MolMic) at the Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute (GBB). MolMic also encompasses the Labs of Profs. Arnold Driessen, Dirk-Jan Scheffers, and Tessa Quax. MolMic is a group of ~ 30 enthusiastic microbiologists and together we study and engineer the functional diversity of microbes on a molecular level. We work with the whole microbial tree of life, from Archaea (Quax, Driessen), to Bacteria (Scheffers, Driessen, Billerbeck ), to yeast (Billerbeck, Driessen) and filamentous fungi (Driessen). Methodologically we use molecular biology and protein biochemistry, fluorescent microscopy, genetic and genome engineering, next-generation sequencing, mass spectrometry, and other biophysical techniques.

The successful applicant has:

• an MSc in the field of molecular life sciences (e.g. microbiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, etc.)
• a creative, open, and resilient mind, and good English skills.
• excellent interpersonal skills combined with an ability to work efficiently both independently and in a team.
• Keen interest in new technologies and building industry relations.

Fixed-term contract: 48 Months.

We offer you, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

• a salary of € 2,443 gross per month in the first year, up to a maximum of € 3,122 gross per month in the fourth and final year
• a holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income
• an 8.3% end-of-year bonus and participation in a pension scheme for employees
• first a temporary position of one year with the option of renewal for another three years. Prolongation of the contract is contingent on sufficient progress in the first year to indicate that a successful completion of the PhD thesis within the next three years is to be expected. A PhD training programme is part of the agreement and the successful candidate will be enrolled in the Graduate School of Science and Engineering.

The starting date is 1 September 2023