Applications are invited for a Research Scientist to join the Laboratory of Dr Paul Kroon in the Quadram Institute, Norwich, UK.

Background:

The successful candidate will join the Kroon group at Quadram Institute Bioscience and work within the Food, Microbiome and Health Institute Strategic Programme. The Kroon group have been undertaking research to understand how polyphenols in plant foods interact with the human body with a view to understanding their contributions to the health benefits of plant food and fruit and vegetable-rich diets for over 25 years. The current focus is on understanding how interaction of polyphenols with the gut microbiome has beneficial effects on the human host. This research includes work to determine the production of beneficial phenolic metabolites and also their role in increasing the production of beneficial microbial metabolites (e.g., short chain fatty acids) and reducing the production of harmful microbial metabolites (e.g., trimethylamine).

The successful candidate will build on recently completed research showing that specific dietary polyphenols inhibit the microbial production of trimethylamine from L-carnitine. They will investigate the underlying mechanisms and in particular explore whether the effects are on gene abundance and/or gene expression and/or protein functions.

The Kroon Group currently comprises three postdocs, a PhD student and visiting scientists and is supported by scientific support staff with expertise in human colon models, metabolomics, quantitative analytical chemistry, sequencing, bioinformatics and human studies.

The role:

The Research Scientist will work on an exciting project that seeks to determine how specific polyphenols interfere with gut microbial methylamine metabolism at a molecular level. They will use single strains and human faecal inoculated in vitro colon models to explore whether the effects are due to changes in the abundance and/or transcription of microbial genes involved in methylamine metabolism and/or on the protein machinery (e.g., enzymes, transporters).

The ideal candidate:

The candidate will have a PhD in Microbiology / Molecular Biology and will be experienced using in a range of microbiology and molecular biology methods. They will develop skills in using human in vitro colon models (including high-throughput models) and LC-MS-based quantitative analytical methods, and also in qPCR, qRT-PCR and enzymology.

Good communication and organisation skills with the ability to work independently are also required. The candidate will have the opportunity to contribute to the training and development of PhD students and other early career researchers.