We are looking for a highly motivated PhD student to be involved in research to explore wood
as a feedstock for energy and new materials in biorefinery. The position is placed within the
Swedish strategic research effort Bio4Energy which is a leading research environment that
Umeå University, the Swedish University of agricultural Sciences (SLU), Luleå University,
Innventia and the Energy Technology Center at Piteå.

Its strategic partners include the industrial clusters Processum Biorefinery Initiative and the Solander Science Park, as well as more than 20 companies in the biorefinery, bioenergy or processing industries. This will give you the possibility to be part of an interdisciplinary network, in which you will be exposed to research and development activities along the whole of the biorefinery value chain from seed to advanced fuels and chemicals.

You will be affiliated with the Umeå Plant Science Center (UPSC, http://www.upsc.se) at SLU, a world-leading center in experimental plant biology and forest biotechnology. UPSC is a vibrant research environment with about 200 scientists from 35 countries that runs several international projects and collaborations. UPSC has technical platforms for advanced biological science and chemistry by which its internationally-leading scientists that carry out research on a wide array of plant biology subjects.

You will be employed as a PhD student for four years, with a preparatory period to implement initial studies and plan the work in detail. Your project will be to explore chemical and structural aspects of wood and secondary cell walls. By investigating genetically modified plants, you will help draft the blueprint for biomass production on a molecular scale. This knowledge will be applied to the development of biomass production systems and may be useful for the development existing and future applications in biorefinery.

Initially, you will be applying a range of standard analytical techniques to a set of genetically modified aspen trees. Together with collaborators in Bio4Energy, you will be assessing determined bulk properties in respect to a variety of established and future biorefininery processes. Further on, you will work with with molecular biologists that study the function of the underlying genes. By highly localised chemical microanalysis, you will help to develop and test models for explaining cell wall biosynthesis down to the molecular scale. Here, the analytical methods are highly specialised and you will develop or adapt methods dependent on biological problem formulations. Available technical equipment includes wet chemical labs, chromatography (LC, IC, GC, SEC), mass-spectrometry (LC, GC, MALDI) and spectroscopy (NMR, FTIR, Raman). Relevant microscopy technology is available at the UPSC.

Requirements
You should have a high degree of self-motivation, a genuine interest to work with research on wood as a feedstock, as well as experimental work using advanced instrumentation. You should be a reliable team player, but also be able to work independently within your field of expertise.

Your formal qualifications should include a MSc degree in Chemistry or Biology. Further, we expect you to have a good command of English, the working language of our research group. Your application should contain a personal letter of motivation, CV and three sets of references.

Forms for funding or employment: Employment as PhD student for years.

For further information about this position, please contact:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Phone +46 90 786 8382   

Academic union representatives
SACO Per Hansson +46 (0)90 786 84 74 
SEKO Inga-Lis Johansson +46 (0)90 786 82 10  
ST Hans Åkesson +46 (0)90 786 82 48  

PhD-student commissioner
Monika Appel, +46 18 671 560, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Applications, marked with ref no 204/2012, should reach the Registrar of SLU, P.O. Box 7070, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden by 2012-02-22. You may chose to submit your application by email to  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by the same date.