Postdoctoral scholarship (1 years) within chemical and cell biology

The Department of   Chemistry  is offering a postdoctoral scholarship within chemical and cell biology.  The scholarship is full-time for one year with access 1 September 2025 or by agreement. Last day to apply is 9 July 2025.

Departmental specific information

 Umeå University is one of Sweden’s largest institutions of higher education with over 35,000 students and 4,200 faculty and staff. We are characterized by world-leading research in several scientific fields and a multitude of educations ranked highly in international comparison. Recent breakthroughs at Umeå University include deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 system and its repurposing into a tool for genome editing, a method developed at Umeå university that was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The host lab is located within the cross-disciplinary Chemical Biological Centre  (https://www.umu.se/en/kbc) at Umeå University and are affiliated with national Centre of Excellence – Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR) (https://www.umu.se/en/ucmr/). The labs are fully equipped for biological and chemical research with access to excellent facilities and state-of-art equipment and platforms in a creative, inspiring, international and highly interactive environment. Facilities include Protein Expertise Platform, X-ray, proteomics, NMR (850-400 MHz), cryo-EM and Biochemical Imaging Centre (confocal, SIM, FLIM, spinning disk, TIRF, STORM).

Project description

Our lab has pioneered novel chemo-optogenetic systems for controlling cellular activities by small molecule and light with high spatiotemporal precision (Angew Chem 2014, 2017, 2018, 2018, 2025, Curr Opin Chem Biol 2015, ChemEurJ 2019, 2025, Nat Meth 2023). This project will combine CAR-T cell engineering with chemo-optogenetic systems to enable precision CAR-T therapy. The techniques used in the project include organic synthesis, protein expression and purification, biochemical characterization, in vitro reconstitution, molecular cloning, cell imaging and western blotting.

The project is interdisciplinary with strong collaborations across scientific disciplines.

The 1-year fellowship (348 000 SEK) is tax-exempt with start 1 Sep, 2025 or by agreement.

Qualifications

To qualify as a postdoctoral scholarship holder, the postdoctoral fellow is required to have completed a doctoral degree or a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree. This qualification requirement must be fulfilled no later than at the time of the decision about scholarship recipient.

Priority should be given to candidates who completed their doctoral degree, according to what is stipulated in the paragraph above, no later than three years prior. If there are special reasons, candidates who completed their doctoral degree before that may also be eligible. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, appointments of trust in trade union organisations, military service or similar circumstances, as well as clinical practice or other forms of appointment/assignment relevant to the subject area. 

Doctoral degree should be within in biochemistry, cell biology, chemical biology, molecular biology, organic chemistry or in another relevant field.

Additional requirements are: The successful candidate is expected to independently further their own studies while actively collaborating with other members of the research team. Independence and a good ability to collaborate are therefore essential requirements. Good command of written and spoken English is also a requirement.

Meriting criteria are: Experience in synthetic chemistry, protein/peptide chemistry, protein expression and purification, molecular cloning, T cell biology, cell imaging, western blotting, and/or gene knock-out/down techniques are considered strong merits, as is a good record of research publication

Application

The application should be written in English or Swedish, and attached documents should be in Word or PDF format. The application should be registered via Umeå University’s e-recruitment system Varbi and submitted by the deadline 9 July 2025.

 A full application should include:

• Cover letter including research interests, qualifications, and motivation for applying (max 2,000 characters with space),
• Curriculum vitae (CV) with publication list,
• Verified copy of doctoral degree certificate or documentation that clarifies when the degree of doctor is expected to be obtained,
• Verified copies of other diplomas, list of completed academic courses and grades,
• Copy of doctoral thesis and max 3 relevant articles,
• Other documents that the applicant wishes to claim.
• Contact information to two persons willing to act as references.

Further information

For more information, please contact Prof. Yaowen Wu, Department of Chemistry, https://www.umu.se/en/research/groups/yaowen-wu/

We look forward to receiving your application!