07 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Umea University, Sweden 

Climate change is expected to have a strong impact on the boreal forest ecosystem, both directly through extreme weather conditions and indirectly through changes in species composition and pests and pathogen prevalence. This project explores a time series of observations on fungal pathogen infection in Scots pine populations and progeny testing trials to understand the quantitative genetic basis of resistance, and model population responses under different climate scenarios. The database of genotyped trees and their corresponding phenotypes will be a valuable tool for improving the efficiency of resistance breeding in Scots pine. The project is a collaboration between Umeå University and the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden (Skogforsk). The postdoc will focus on the characterization of structural genomic variation in Scots pine, and its role in resistance and other quantitative traits by using long-read sequencing technique. The duties include generating long-read sequence data, conducting population genetics analyses, collecting and analyzing phenotypic data, and publishing research articles. The postdoc will have the opportunities to develop own research interests and network, and contribute to other ongoing projects in the research team.

The position will involve conducting research to better understand how policy makers, the public and other key stakeholders engage with evidence on the health dimensions of climate change and to what extent it motivates or inhibits behavioral and/or organizational change. The work mainly includes literature studies and studies using qualitative methodology, but can also, in collaboration with researchers at a British university, deal with survey experiments, case studies and other relevant methods. The postdoctoral research fellow is expected to play an active role in design, collection and analysis of various forms of data as well as report writing. The appointment also involves some participation in other parts of the group’s work in sustainability, climate change and health at the department.

Habitat-forming benthic plants and algae are found throughout the world’s coastal oceans, creating biodiversity hotspots that provide us with a wealth of socioeconomic, ecological and cultural benefits. However, rapid environmental change because of human activities is threatening their survival, because of a loss of suitable benthos and changes to the underwater environment. Understanding the impact of environmental change on their physiology is the first step towards actionable conservation management. The Baltic Sea is considered to be a global “time machine” for marine environmental change. With a unique coastal environment, the Baltic Sea is characterised by strong seasonal cycles and latitudinal environmental gradients, significant terrestrial and human influence and a unique ecological community structure consisting of marine, limnetic and brackish-water taxa. Importantly for research application, there is already a well-developed cross-border management structure, providing a framework for using empirical understanding to inform and improve conservation actions. Optically, the Baltic Sea is exceptional because of its brackish nature and its relatively high concentration of coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM). CDOM inputs are projected to continue to increase over the coming decades: so-called ‘brownification’. Understanding how habitat-forming benthic species will respond to such environmental change (compounded by other environmental factors such as warming) is therefore of critical regional-scale importance, with global applicability. The aim of this position is to (1) quantify the photosynthetic response of marine and aquatic plants and macroalgae to present day and future projected Baltic Sea light regimes over multiple timescales, and (2) predict implications for future habitat provision.

The covid-19 pandemic has clearly highlighted our inability to counteract viruses that cause infections in humans. In the project we focus on viruses that cause infections in the respiratory tract by utilizing the carbohydrate sialic acid as receptor on the surface of host cells. Based on current knowledge including the structure of the sialic acid binding virus proteins you will design, synthesize, purify and characterize sialic acids and larger conjugates. In our multidisciplinary network of chemists, structural biologists, and virologists the compounds will be evaluated for their capacity to prevent virus attachment to and subsequent infection of host cells to increase our understanding of this first critical step in the virus life cycle. Your work responsibilities may also include supervision of thesis projects at the bachelor and master level. You will work in state-of-the-art facilities with access to all necessary infrastructure of which many are organized in platforms within the Chemical Biological Centre: https://www.umu.se/en/chemical-biological-centre/. The team is part of Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR): https://www.umu.se/en/ucmr/. As a UCMR principal investigator Emmanuelle Charpentier made her discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool and in 2020 she and Jennifer Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry based on this ground-breaking finding.

The Postdoc is expected to conduct independent historical research. In addition to research, part of the job consists in contributing to the research environment by actively participating in the historical research seminar and other research activities. Certain administrative tasks related to research activities might occur.

We are looking for a postdoctoral scientist who is qualified to contribute their special expertise in analytical biochemistry and biostatistics. We seek to map environmental light doses across day-night phases that make large contributions to photoperiodic pupil sensitivity and differential RNA expression levels. The work shall address sleep and affective susceptibilities to better understand the aetiology of affective disorders. The tasks include: