Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biosciences

This new full-time post is available from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2028 on a fixed term basis.

The post

The Faculty of Health and Life Sciences wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow that will work in the group of Prof Stefano Pagliara and will participate in the project “Understanding stereochemical selection across proto-cellular membranes”. The overarching aim of this project is to establish whether the core lipids of primordial cellular membranes could provide stereochemical compound selection, thereby demonstrating a solution to the chirality problem during the evolution of life.

This project is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and will involve working in collaboration with Prof Tom Richards, University of Oxford, Dr Juliano Morimoto, University of Aberdeen and Prof Mark Blaskovich, University of Queensland.

This post is available from the 1^st of April 2025 or shortly thereafter on a three-year fixed-term contract. The successful applicant will have extensive expertise in biophysics.

During this project, the successful candidate will investigate the transport of molecules across membranes and will measure the permeability of archaeal and bacterial lipid membranes with different chemistries to stereoisomers of metabolites that are key for life, such as sugars and amino acids.

These investigations will rely on the use of vesicle electroformation instrumentation, microscopy, microfluidics and image analysis and will allow to discover which membrane characteristics and which environmental factors confer stereochemical compound selection.

About you

The successful applicant will be able to develop new methodologies and research objectives, write high impact publications and make presentations at conferences and other events.

Applicants will possess a PhD in biophysics, physics, bioengineering or biochemistry. The successful applicant will be a nationally recognised authority in biophysics and possess sufficient specialist knowledge in the discipline to develop research methodologies. The successful applicant will also be able to work collaboratively, supervise the work of others and act as team leader as required. Applicants will be able to use microscopes, design, produce and use microfluidic devices, use software for the programming of microscopes and related instrumentation, use software for the automation of image analysis, and ideally have prior expertise in the field of membrane transport and in the electroformation and characterisation of unilamellar lipid vesicles.

Please ensure you read the Job Description and Person Specification for full details of this role.

The University of Exeter

We are a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive universities and in the top 200 universities in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 and QS World University Ranking 2024). We combine world-class teaching with world-class research, achieving a Gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework Award 2023, underpinned by Gold ratings for Student Experience and Student Outcomes.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Commitment

We are committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments are available for interviews and workplaces.

Whilst all applicants will be judged on merit alone, we particularly welcome applications from groups currently underrepresented within our working community. 

We are proud signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant and welcome applications from service people.

Further information

For further information please contact Prof Stefano Pagliara, e-mail s.pagliara@exeter.ac.uk or telephone (01392) 723171.

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