Postdoc: Time-Resolved Crystallography at Room Temp

PSI; Villigen; On-site; CHF 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow in Time-resolved and Room-temperature Crystallography. The role focuses on developing time-resolved experiments, including microsecond pump-probe and picolitre injection techniques, to study dynamic structural enzymology at MX beamlines.

The successful candidate will establish SSX workflows on cryo-compatible chips, assess radiation damage at room temperature, and publish results while collaborating

Qualifications

• PhD degree in structural biology, biophysics, biochemistry, chemistry, physics or a related field.
• Hands-on experience in macromolecular crystallography, from X-ray data collection and processing to structure determination and refinement.
• Experience in serial and/or time-resolved crystallography at synchrotrons or XFELs.
• Strong interest in method and instrumentation development and enjoyment of working in an interdisciplinary team at a large-scale research facility.
• Very good written and spoken English.
• Desirable: experience with protein production and (micro)crystallisation, reaction initiation (mixing, laser pump-probe, T-jump) or enzyme kinetics
• Desirable: programming skills (e.g. Python) and experience with serial data-processing software (e.g. CrystFEL, XDS) or radiation-damage studies

Responsibilities

• Implement and run time-resolved experiments: substrate / ligand droplet mixing with a picolitre injector and microsecond pump-probe experiments (laser-induced temperature jump, photocaged compounds) using the JUNGFRAU detector
• Apply these methods to dynamic structural enzymology to capture reaction intermediates and conformational changes
• Establish serial synchrotron crystallography SSX workflows on cryo-compatible fixed-target chips (e.g. IMISX, MISP-chip) for dynamic studies
• Characterise X-ray-induced heating and radiation damage at room temperature on micro- to millisecond time scales and derive data-collection protocols
• Publish results in peer-reviewed journals, present them at international conferences and support external users and collaborators

Skills

Macromolecular crystallography

Serial crystallography

Time-resolved crystallography

Interdisciplinary teamwork

English proficiency

Enzyme kinetics

Education

PhD in structural biology/related field

Tools

CrystFEL

XDS

Python

Job description

The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow in Time-resolved and Room-temperature Crystallography. The role focuses on developing time-resolved experiments, including microsecond pump-probe and picolitre injection techniques, to study dynamic structural enzymology at MX beamlines.

The successful candidate will establish SSX workflows on cryo-compatible chips, assess radiation damage at room temperature, and publish results while collaborating