PhD Research Fellow in evolutionary venomics at the University of Oslo

Position as PhD Research Fellow in evolutionary venomics is available in the Undheim group at the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), at the Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo.

Starting date is on or after January 2, 2023, but no later than March 31, 2023.

Project description

The Undheim group is interested in questions in evolutionary biology that relate to how evolutionary innovations and novelties emerge and how they interact across levels of biological complexity. Animal venoms are excellent models for this purpose: They are cocktails of bioactive polypeptides (“toxins”) that often potently and selectively target important physiological processes in their vic-tims, and that have evolved through the modification of existing “housekeep-ing” proteins and peptides.

A major focus of the group is to gain an understanding of the molecular under-pinnings of evolvability using the venoms from lacewings (order Neuroptera) as models, which was recently funded by the European Research Council. The candidate will work with the macro-evolutionary aspect of this project, studying the mechanisms by which neuropteran venom proteins arose and have diversified using a broad range of methods, including proteomics, transcriptom-ics, genomics, functional assays, molecular evolutionary analyses, and structur-al biology. The project will also involve collaborations with other research groups both nationally and internationally (e.g., The University of Queensland, Australia).