The RRES Center is a talented team of scientists and technicians working in biological, chemical, and catalytic research . The center has strong thrusts in polymer design and upcycling, separations, synthetic biology and bioconversion, analytical sciences, computational modeling, and lignocellulosic chemistry and catalysis.
The successful candidate will work in the DOE-funded ‘Integrating cell-free systems and genome engineering to accelerate biosystems design for carbon-negative biomanufacturing’ project to develop optimized cell-free systems for the conversion of C1 substrates to sustainable biofuels and bioproducts. The specific role will require identifying, expressing, purifying, and assaying enzymes from full metabolic pathways, developing high-throughput enzymatic assays for pathway validation, and working with data scientists to develop efficient cell-free production pathways. The project will be in collaboration done in close connection with industrial partners and researchers at NLR and collaborating institutions.
The successful candidate will utilize biochemical assays to measure enzyme activities and conduct directed evolution, structure-guided protein engineering, and machine learning-guided protein engineering studies to improve enzyme and pathway function. The ability to conduct laboratory experiments with minimal supervision with the utmost regard to safety is required, as well as the ability to learn new techniques and protocols.
The successful candidate will be able to:
• Work safely and independently in a laboratory setting
• Plan and execute research in collaboration with other researchers
• Communicate scientific results effectively, both in written and oral formats
• Author peer-reviewed publications, and
• Work effectively in a large, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional team of engineers and scientists.