Postdoc in Food and Nutrition Science

The Department of Biology and Biological Engineering was founded January 1 2015, and started off with high ambitions. The aim was to grow and become a leading center of innovation by combining the latest research in life sciences with biochemistry. And the department got off to flying start. In its first year, the numbers for publication, citation and external funding have been excellent.

The department consists of four divisions, each conducting outstanding research in the areas of industrial biotechnology, systems biology, chemical biology and food science. The overall goal is to help build a sustainable society and improve human health.

Nearly 200 people from 20 countries are currently working at the department. The working environment is characterized by respect, cooperation, responsibility, creativity and job satisfaction.

The Department of Biology and Biological Engineering has summarized its mission in four points:
• To be an attractive environment for top-level researchers in biological engineering
• To deliver top-level research results and innovative solutions for use in a sustainable society
• To offer excellent education that develops creative engineers and scientists
• To be a major contributor to international visibility of Chalmers

Information about the division
The division of Food and Nutrition Science is one of four research divisions at the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering. Food and Nutrition Science is one of the leading units in the area in Sweden with particular strengths in nutritional and computational metabolomics, dietary biomarkers, micronutrient metal nutrition, nutritional immunology, marine food science and nutrition as well as food by-product biorefining. The division has a wide range of modern analytical equipment for chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry, an in vitro human cell laboratory, and a microbiology laboratory. The division focuses on nutritional solutions for health and disease prevention by studies on the molecular, cellular, and whole-body level. It also has a strong focus on sustainable use of food raw materials and on many different quality aspects of food.

-The details of the departmental research activities may be found here.  

About the research
The Post Doc position is part of a larger European project -BlueCC- with 8 partners from 6 European countries aiming commercial exploitation of collagen and chitosan from marine resources. The BlueCC project aims to take underutilized species such as invasive marine species, by-catch, and cleaner fish from the aquaculture industry to develop new eco-friendly marine ingredients and products in a market acceptance approach. This particular position will address development of sustainable, cost-effective and scalable processes for the production of collagen and collagen peptides or gelatine from invasive aquatic species to yield marketable products. A number of emerging eco-innovative technologies such as pulsed electric field (PEF), ultrasound and high pressure processing, as well as novel solvents and enzymes will be employed to develop sustainable, efficient and scalable processes for isolation of collagen and its peptides from the marine resources. Each process will be fine-tuned for each biomass. Also, techniques such as NMR, FTIR, Raman Spectroscopy, electrophoresis, rheology, and thermal methods will be used for quantitation of the physiochemical properties of the isolated collagen and its peptides, as well as the efficacy of the extraction techniques.

Major responsibilities
To carry out research within the BlueCC EU-project as described above, with a specific focus on the extraction of collagen, gelatin and collagen peptides from aquatic resources. Characterization of produced ingredients will also be done in collaboration with other partners in the project. Overall, the candidate should be responsible for experimental planning, practical work, sample collection, data handling, writing of publications and communications of results within the BlueCC project.

Your major responsibility as a postdoc is to perform your own research in a research group. The position also includes supervising master's and/or PhD students to a certain extent. Another important aspect involves collaboration within academia and with society at large. The position is meritorious for future research duties within academia as well as industry/the public sector.

Position summary
Full-time temporary employment. The position is limited to 1 year, with possibilities for extension.

Qualifications
A Ph. D in chemistry, food science, seafood science or similar is required. Further, a self-motivated individual who has demonstrated the ability to conduct scientific research successfully and work independently is desirable. The candidates ability to combine creativity and experimental research together with a focus on applications to generate industry-ready solutions leading to commercialization is a strong advantage. The potential candidate should have a good record of publication in world leading journals, good communication skills, and team working as well as collaboration experience with industry. Experience in working with marine side streams, protein isolation, enzymatic hydrolysis and peptide purification is also needed. Experience in isolation of collagen and collagen hydrolysates and peptides will be highly valued and knowledge on eco-innovative processing technologies e.g PEF, US and HPP would be an advantage. In terms of analytical skills, knowledge on molecular biological techniques such as SDS-PAGE, chromatographic techniques like LC-MS, GC-MS and SEC is needed. The candidate must also have experience in rheological studies, spectroscopic techniques such as FTIR, DSC and microscopic techniques e.g. SEM.

The position requires sound verbal and written communication skills in English. 

Chalmers continuously strives to be an attractive employer. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

About the application procedure

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. ***