Nowadays, most low-grade organic waste is usually incinerated or converted into low-value products. This results in the loss of valuable raw materials, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, environmental pollution, and is simply inefficient from any point of view. Within the large consortium ABEL (Ab-initio Biowaste Loop) funded by the Dutch Research Council, we have a PhD student position focused on developing innovative technologies for upcycling this waste into high-performance advanced materials. In collaboration with a post-doctoral researcher, the PhD student will explore how bio-polymer mono-materials made from organic waste can be used to create advanced materials with extended mechanical and/or dynamic functionalities. Based on a known catalytic process, the PhD student will develop numerical models to reproduce the mechanics of bio-based polymers and then apply the principles of metamaterials to activate application-beneficial functionalities, which will make them attractive for industrial needs and, particularly, construction applications.

Data centers consume an increasing amount of energy. Unconstrainted growth of data centers is no longer acceptable in light of their financial and environmental implications. Users of data centers are generally not aware of the energy consumed by their jobs, and no incentives are provided by data center operators to reduce this impact. In this project you will give end users of a scientific High Performance Computing (HPC) data center the information they need to make decisions about reducing their energy footprint. Through measurements, modeling, reporting and visualization, you will give policy and decision makers and stakeholders the information they need to offer proper incentives to those end users.

Photopharmacology enables precise pharmacotherapy in time and space by designing drugs whose activity can be controlled with light. However, without the support of modern medical imaging methods to reveal the location of the disease and the therapy activation, photopharmacology remains blind. To tackle this challenge, the position is funded by the Dutch Science Council (NWO) in the context of the Open Competition M2 grant and is connected to another PhD position open at UMCG at the same time with the aim of forming a team of two PhD students and three PIs (Szymanski, Kruijff, Vonk) to reach the goals described above. The team altogether offers strong support in chemistry, photochemistry and molecular medical imaging.

The position we offer will be embedded in the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy (GRIP) within the Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Biology (CBP, https://www.rug.nl/research/grip/cpb/).

Please upload applications only according to instructions at www.haloverse.eu/recruitment and not through this website.

Researchers at GRIP strive to find new and innovative drugs and therapies and wish to improve the use of existing drugs. Bridging the gap between the fundamental natural sciences (such as chemistry and physics) and the medical/clinical sciences in the field of medicinal products is the one of the core activities of the institute. The CPB Department is represented by an enthusiastic group of researchers from different parts of the world. The cell as producer and target for pharmaceuticals is the main part of the research at CBP. Prof. Schmidt’s research group (http://schmidt-researchgroup.com) offers a multicultural, inclusive and interdisciplinary research environment that integrates synthetic biology with protein engineering and biocatalysis. The team maintains strong national and international collaborations (both academic and industrial) focusing on translational research and industrially relevant applications. Their work centers on gaining fundamental insights into enzyme mechanisms and functions, with the ultimate goal of using biocatalysts to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients through scalable and sustainable enzymatic synthesis.

Please upload applications only according to instructions at www.haloverse.eu/recruitment and not through this website.

The advances of fluorescent markers provide powerful new possibilities for guided precision medicine in cancer surgery. However, fluorescent signals in soft tissue can be difficult to interpret, especially when they are weak, unstable, or partially obscured during minimally invasive procedures. To help surgeons achieve the best possible post-operative quality of life for cancer patients, we are looking for a highly motivated PhD candidate to join an international research effort combining medical imaging, computer vision, and artificial intelligence.