PRE2023-Estudio de las mini-proteínas pertenecientes al proteoma oculto de Staphylococcus aureus para descifrar sus funciones biológicas (PID2022-136696NB-I00)

The Laboratory of Bacterial Gene Regulation offers a 4-year FPI PhD contract at the Agrobiotechnology Institute in Pamplona, to develop your Doctoral project in Molecular Microbiology. Your supervisors will be Alejandro Toledo-Arana and Jaione Valle and the candidate will be enrolled in the Biotechnology Doctoral Program of the Public University of Navarra (UPNA). The offer includes salary for the 4 years, university fees, national health insurance and funding for short stays at prestigious research institutions to ensure the international certificate of the PhD thesis. This contract is an excellent opportunity for motivated young researchers seeking to advance in the use of omics and molecular microbiology approaches to study the hidden proteome of bacterial pathogens. The project will be carried out using Staphylococcus aureus as a model, one of the most important clinical pathogens worldwide. The work plan is organized in three main objectives: i) the functional analysis of mini-proteins, ii) the identification of mini-protein membrane insertion mechanisms, and iii) mining novel mini-proteins involved in relevant biological processes. Understanding mini-protein functions will uncover novel putative targets for the development of new drugs, providing therapeutic alternatives to deal with antimicrobial resistance and chronic infectious diseases.