Postdoctoral Researcher (m/f/div) in Antimicrobial Peptide Engineering/Discovery

Job Advertisement HKI-36/2025 In a joint, multi-disciplinary approach, the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena together with the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (www.leibniz-hki.de) have launched the SynThera initiative (www.synthera.eu) funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation, which aims to design, create, and deploy synthetic microorganisms to detect and destroy bacterial and fungal pathogens selectively. SynThera consortium contains ten research groups and is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Kai Papenfort and Prof. Dr. Miriam Rosenbaum. Within the consortium, the junior research group of Robotic-assisted Discovery of Antiinfectives focuses on the design and testing of antimicrobial compounds in response to infection-specific signals. The group is seeking to fill the position of a Postdoctoral Researcher (m/f/div) in Antimicrobial Peptide Engineering/Discovery start at the earliest possible date. The goal of this project is to engineer existing biosynthetic pathways encoding for natural products such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs, RiPPs) for maximal specificity and activity against microbial human pathogens. Libraries of peptide-based natural products will be produced using molecular cloning and the resulting compounds will be screened to evaluate their antimicrobial activity. The modular robotic platform JenXplor will be used to fully automate these workflows, enabling the systematic testing and engineering of peptides at a high throughput. Your profile: PhD in synthetic biology, natural product chemistry, microbiology, life science, or related discipline Extensive experience in synthetic biology and molecular biology techniques, particularly molecular cloning Experience with the creation of DNA / peptide libraries (e.g. by error-prone PCR) Experience with working with (antimicrobial) peptides and peptide-based natural products (e.g. RiPPs) Expertise in high-throughput screening assay is advantageous Familiarity with automated liquid handling systems is a plus Excellent communication skills for interdisciplinary collaboration and strong problem-solving abilities What you can expect: A state-of-the-art robotic platform for automated biological screening, including antimicrobial activity assays, colony picking, mutant library generation, and heterologous expression of BGCs with 96-well extractions A highly collaborative and interdisciplinary research team (10 research groups) in the SynThera initiative An integrated, translational research strategy including fundamental and applied approaches You will create, process, analyze and interpret the research data, prepare reports, and scientific publications You will take part and present your work in scientific discussions and at national and international meetings What we offer: A communicative and interdisciplinary environment with active scientific community An outstanding scientific environment of the Beutenberg Campus providing state-of-art research facilities and a highly integrative network of life science and technical science institutes and groups Strong scientific collaborations with academic and industrial partners A comprehensive mentoring program including training in soft skills offered by the Jena Graduate Academy and the Jena School of Microbial Communication University health promotion and a wide range of university sports activities A salary according to German TV-L (salary agreement for public service employees) Further Information: Dr. Luzia Gyr | +49 3641 532 1481 | career@leibniz-hki.de Application: Leibniz-HKI is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. It aims to increase the proportion of underrepresented groups in case of equal suitability. All qualified persons, regardless of color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or other classification protected by law will receive consideration for employment. Complete applications in English should include a cover letter, a CV containing a complete list of publications, a brief statement of research experiences, the addresses of two possible referees, and should be submitted via the Leibniz-HKI online application system . The deadline for the advertisement is August 22, 2025 , but applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.