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PhD Studentship in Microbiology: Ireland

A PhD position is available, funded by the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine as part of a 4-year research project ‘Understanding Listeria monocytogenes growth in food in order to simplify the guidelines for undertaking food challenge studies’. The project is a collaboration between University College Cork, Moorepark Teagasc Food Research Centre (Fermoy, Co. Cork), University College Dublin, NUI Galway and University of Limerick. The PhD project will be for 4 years (starting on 1st October 2018) and will cover EU fees in addition to a personal stipend of €18,000 per annum plus research expenses. The researcher will be based in the School of Microbiology, UCC.

Key Duties and Responsibilities: The candidate is expected to be creative, self-motivated, and should be capable of working on their own initiative as well as integrating within the wider research team. This PhD Project will extend our previous work (see open access paper by Hilliard et al., 2018 below) by further analyzing the genomes of a range of Listeria monocytogenes strains and equating genomic to phenotypic data in order to relate genotype to ability to cause disease. Basic Molecular Microbiology skills would be required and familiarity with bioinformatics and proteomics approaches would be an advantage.

  • Hilliard et al. 2018. Genomic Characterization of Listeria monocytogenes Isolates Associated with Clinical Listeriosis and the Food Production Environment in Ireland. Genes. 2018 Mar 20;9(3). pii: E171

Essential Criteria: The successful candidate must have an MSc or BSc degree (at 2.1 grade or higher) in microbiology, biochemistry, biomedical sciences, food science or a related discipline. Some experience of basic molecular microbiology techniques (e.g. microbial growth assays, PCR, sequencing) is essential. The candidate must be highly motivated; have an academic record of excellence, good writing and communication skills, initiative and ability to work within a multi-disciplinary project team to achieve results.

Stipend: €18,000 per annum + EU Fees. Non-EU candidates may apply but they will need to cover extra fees themselves.

To Apply:

Qualified candidates should send a brief covering letter, a CV and names of two academic references – to: Dr. Cormac Gahan (c.gahan@ucc.ie), on or before the September 10th, 2018.

 

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