If you are a Master (‘speciale’) or scholarship student and interested in a project in Chemical Biology, contact us (Kristian Strømgaard or Anders S. Kristensen) anytime for an informal talk about opportunities or drop by our laboratory or office (2nd floor, rum 240 or 244).
Scholarship students. A scholarship project is typically performed prior to the Master thesis project and can last for 6 to 12 months. Many students combine a 6-month scholarship project with their 6- or 12 month thesis. It includes financial support to the student in form of a salary of 10.000 DKK per month during the scholarship period.
IMPORTANT: We are currently seeking 2 scholarship students for specific projects to start early 2012. Contact us immediately if you are interested.
Master ("Speciale") students. Each year we accept up to 6 master students; typically doing a 6-month laboratory-based project for their final Master of Science thesis. We also of course accept 12 month projects. Most students originate from FARMA, but we also have students from other faculties at KU, other Danish universities or international exchange students (for example ERASMUS).
Projects in the Chemical Biology group generally combine chemistry and biology. Depending on student interests, we typically find a project that either focuses on chemistry or biology methods or combine elements from both disciplines. Examples of techniques and methodologies that form the basis for projects are:
- Molecular biology: Learn how to use DNA manipulation techniques to perform for example cloning of genes, protein mutagenesis and creation of fusion-proteins.
- Molecular pharmacology: Study drug mechanism-of-action at recombinant proteins expressed in cell cultures, perform dose-response assays to determine drug efficacies and kinetics, understanding drug-protein interactions using 3D models of proteins of interest.
- Biochemistry: Learn how to express protein in mammalian cell cultures or bacteria, and to purify and analyze proteins (LC-MS, SDS-PAGE, Western blotting).
- Biophysics: Learn how to perform electrophysiology to measure electrical currents running through receptors and transporters to determine drug effects or characterize protein function. Use fluorescence-based technologies such as FRET and BRET to measure protein motions and interactions in real-time.
- Organic Synthetic Chemistry: Apply a variety of modern synthetic methods such as solid-phase synthesis to design and synthesize biologically relevant molecules; we are particularly interested in using natural product toxins as templates for making new molecules.
- Peptide and protein chemistry: Learn basic technologies for solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS), and use this to generate peptides, either as ligands for protein-protein interactions or as building blocks in semi-synthesis of proteins.
All students contribute directly to our core research projects and the majority of results from scholar and master student projects are published in scientific peer-reviewed research articles. Examples of recent master student projects and publications:
- Stinna M. R. Hansen: Neurotransmitter transporters (2011) - Andersen et al. Proc. Natl. Acad Sci. USA 2011, 108, 12137.
- Anne F. Barslund: SAR studies of polyamine toxins (2010) - Barslund et al J. Nat. Prod. 2011, 74, 483.
- Rasmus Deeskamp: Protein-protein interactions (2010) - Bach et al. J. Med. Chem. 2011, 54, 1333.
Social life
Having a good time in and out of the lab fascilitates a good working and learning enviroment that is needed to do good research!
We arrange social events of all types on a regular basis. These include our "Speciale" day every semester where resident master students have to arrange a day of actitives and our annual group retreats in August, but also improvised events such as barbecues, playing games, going out for dinner etc.
