Synthetic Biology and Interfacial Catalysis

A postdoctoral research position is available in the Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington DC (http://www.nrl.navy.mil/). This position is at the interface of biology and materials and focuses on creating new biocataltyic enzyme-based nanomaterials with emergent properties.

 

NRL is the Department of Defense’s (DoDs) corporate laboratory for the Navy and Marine Corps. The Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering works at the interface of materials, chemistry, biology, biophysics and materials science to solve critical problems of importance to the Navy and DoD.

 

Project Description: When enzymes are displayed at a nanoparticle interface in a controlled and homogeneous manner, in many cases they display substantially enhanced catalytic activity. We are interested in understanding the mechanisms by which enzyme activity is altered and enhanced at this nanoparticle interface and learning how to exploit this in the context of synthetic biology. We are particularly interested in designing and assembling totally artificial enzyme-based biosynthetic pathways on nanoparticles in vitro where the overall catalytic flux through the system can be expected to be greatly enhanced by what appears to be channeling behavior. This approach represents an important and complementary way of achieving biocatalysis for use synthetic biology that is still extremely underutilized.

 

Candidates desired experience to include a PhD in a related biological discipline such as molecular biology, biochemistry, or microbiology with some combination of experience in cloning and recombinant DNA technology, enzymatic assays, fluorescence, bacterial-eukaryotic cell expression and analysis, biosensing, and synthetic biology. Experience with nanoparticles/nanomaterials and FRET are a plus.