Job announcement
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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

application deadline: 16.7.2010
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PhD position in Evolutionary Ecology/Proteomics on the model system Daphnia

A 3-year PhD position is available in the labs of PD Dr. Christian Laforsch and Dr. Georg Arnold (joined project) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich.

We are looking for an enthusiastic and well-motivated person who would like to join our laboratories to study the molecular basis of adaptation to predation stress, focusing on plastic defensive traits in the water flea Daphnia. A holistic proteome approach will be applied to show differences and similarities in protein expression in D. magna faced to vertebrate and invertebrate predators to discover the proteins controlling different defensive strategies. The main objectives of the project are:

-to discover candidate proteins, which may play a critical role in building the defensive traits

-to compare the expression of candidate proteins in populations with contrasting predator coexistence history

-to generate peptide induced antibodies with monoepitopic specificity (iSEPIA) against a set of candidate proteins derived from holistic approaches to enable their functional analysis.

The project is embedded in the European Science Foundation project “Stressflea” - How to live in a mosaic of stressors – an ecological genomics approach on the water flea Daphnia.

Applicants should have a Master's or diploma degree in biology. Experience in experimental design, handling aquatic organisms, protein biochemistry, statistics and bioinformatics would be advantageous.

Applicants should email a cover letter summarizing their research background and interest in the posted position, a CV, an abstract of master/diploma thesis, and contact information for two referees (everything as one PDF document) to both supervisors (laforsch@bio.lmu.de and arnold@lmb.uni-muenchen.de), by July 16. The position is available from 1st September 2010.