Technician Biochemistry

The isolation of lipids from bacteria and yeast for applications in Drug Discovery and Drug Delivery is a new, fascinating research direction in our unit. In direct contact with principal investigators and other staff, the technician will be performing these natural production isolations. In addition, the technician will optimise the cultivation of several bacteria and yeast strains to up-scale the production.

Your job
As technician of the Weingarth group, you will be working with a young, dynamic team focused on drug development and drug delivery. You work will be centred around the isolation and purification of lipids from microorganism (bacteria, yeast). You will use lab skills and research skills that cover the entire research cycle: from concept/hypothesis, design and planning to lab work and collection of data, analysis, and reporting. You will optimize procedures to isolate lipids, including HPLC routines and implement optimal growth conditions for bacterial cultures and yeast cultures. Furthermore, you will contribute to Drug Delivery projects. For these projects, you will be involved in the formulation of different lipid nano particles (which are important for RNA based medicine such as the delivery of SARS-CoV2 vaccine).

• A job for one year with the option for extension;
• a fulltime working week and a gross monthly salary between €3,057 and €3,985 in the case of full-time employment (salary scale 7 under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the terms of employmentlaid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University has a number of schemes and facilities of its own for employees. This includes schemes facilitating professional development, leave schemes and schemes for sports and cultural activities. We also offer access to additional employee benefits through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage our employees to continue to invest in their growth. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

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The Weingarth group (Drug Development, Structural Biology) is part of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance section of the Chemistry Department. You will work on the isolation of natural products (mostly lipids) with applications in drug development and drug delivery using biochemistry and microbiology techniques. You will join the Weingarth group working on drug development centred around lipids as drug targets and drug formulations. This is an international team, eager to bring lipids further into applications that can create impact in society. The team does research at the interface of Biochemistry, Structural Biology, and Pharmaceutical Sciences.