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Dear all,

Please find bellow the description of a joint PhD position in CryoEM 
between ESRF and SANOFI

Best regards

Guy Schoehn


PhD thesis title: High resolution Cryo- Electron Microscopy of Antibody 
/ Antigen complexes

More and more research focus is being put on biologics and their 
development as drugs. These molecules are usually large and flexible and 
they can interact with various targets located on the surface of cells; 
Bi-specific antibodies are an example that can potentially bind to two 
different antigens and which have gained attention due to their 
potential application in cancer immunotherapy and drug delivery. To 
fully understand their mechanism, structural knowledge at an atomic 
level is needed.

While low resolution studies can be obtained using traditional 
microscopy, high resolution studies of these interactions are usually 
performed by protein crystallography (or by Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange 
studies) using fragments of both antibody and antigen. The ESRF is in 
progress of installing a Krios microscope which, coupled with a direct 
electron detector and a Volta phase plate will enable us to determine 
the full structure of the complexes.

The successful candidatewill characterise Ag/Biologics complexes from 
Sanofi, using state-of-the-art microscopes at the cryo-EM platform of 
the Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB) and will determine the 
high-resolution structure of one or more of these complexes.

The PhD thesis will last 3 years starting in late autumn 2017, in a 
collaboration between Sanofi (Vitry sur Seine, France) and the ESRF 
(Grenoble, France) under the co-supervision of Dr. Magali Mathieu 
(Sanofi) and Dr. Gordon Leonard (ESRF). This thesis will be CIFRE 
(Conventions Industrielles de Formation par la REcherche) and the 
student will be a Sanofi employee (CDD) for the whole duration of the 
thesis. Most of his/her work will be performed at the ESRF.

The applicant must have a Master Degree (Master2 or MSc) in integrated 
structural biology or biophysics, some knowledge in cryo-electron 
microscopy and in molecular and cell biology. He/she should be a team 
player and have good communication skills.

CV and accompanying letter should be sent to [log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>AND 
[log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>before July 7, 2017.