The four vacant positions are funded by Novo Nordisk Fonden, the Research Council of Norway (RCN) and the ERA-Net BlueBio Cofund, and are part of a collaboration between several research groups at the Faculty of Biosciences (BIOVIT) and Faculty of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Sciences (KBM). We will hire:
- PhD student, KBM, project SeaCow: Promoting 'efficient, low emitting' cows through nutritional manipulation of the rumen microbiome.
- PhD student Biovit, project SuPA[cow]: Sustainable production of animals by optimizing the feed-microbiome-host axis
- Postdoctoral fellow (3 years), KBM, project “ImprovAFish": Improving aquaculture sustainability by modulating the feed-microbiome-host axis in fish
- PhD student or postdoctoral fellow, KBM, project “DENITRO”: Oxidative polysaccharide conversion in anoxia by denitrifying organisms
These projects will examine the interplay between the environment, microbiome function and host phenotype (where applicable). They will go beyond standard omics-style analyses and integrate metadata, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metaproteomics layers (multi-omics) in one collective analytical effort and will additionally endeavor to include all keystone microbial genomes from bacterial, archaeal, viral and eukaryotic (fungi and protozoa) origins.
Joint network analysis of expression data from both active gut microbiota and host tissue will attempt to identify key correlations between particular microbial populations and host metabolism, in particular for animals that exhibit varying performance metrics and/or methane levels. Taken together, it aims to integrate meta-data and multi-omics to describe the interplay between feed, host animal and its associated microbiota. For the DENITRO-project, microbial dynamics in freshwater wetlands and biofilters will be investigated and possible links to process performance and exploitation identified.
The present positions are funded by projects run by the following research groups at NMBU: Microbial Ecology and Meta-Omics (MEMO), Protein Engineering and Proteomics (PEP) and Bioinformatics and Applied Statistics (BIAS). For further information, please contact Assoc. Prof. Phil B. Pope, SuPA[cow] + ImprovAFish (phil.pope@nmbu.no). Prof Torgeir R. Hvidsten, SuPA[cow] + ImprovAFish (torgeir.r.hvidsten@nmbu.no). Dr Live Hagen, SeaCow (live.hagen@nmbu.no). Dr. Magnus Arntzen, DENITRO (magnus.arntzen@nmbu.no)