Postdoc position available in the Muller Lab

Hagar Zohar from the Muller lab at Berkeley contacted me and asked me to post an opening for a postdoc in their lab.  We here at In Singulo aim to please!  Details:

Post-doctoral Position Available: Biochemical synthesis of DNA binding proteins

for single molecule studies

A post-doctoral position is available in the area of single molecule detection of specific DNA-protein complexes using fluorescence microscopy. Protein probes are designed to bind sequence-specifically to target nucleic acid sequences; the ultimate goal is to engineer a microfluidic genotyping tool. Qualified candidates will have expertise in biochemistry and molecular biology including recombinant DNA technology, protein purification, DNA-protein interactions, nucleic acid enzymology, PCR, and related methods. Previous experience in single molecule studies is preferred, though not critical for the position. The primary initial focus will be protein probe design and synthesis; this work will be coupled to on-going efforts on single molecule studies in microfluidic devices. This project is part of a larger collaboration with the Shaqfeh group at Stanford.

This position is available immediately, and will remain open until filled. The initial appointment will be one year; renewal will be subject to mutual agreement and the availability of funds.

Interested candidates should send a letter of application, resume, and the names and contact information of three references to: Professor Susan Muller, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-1462 or via e-mail (preferred) to muller2[at]berkeley[dot]edu.

People Who Have Too Much Time On Their Hands, Election 2008 Edition

Nanobama.

Stone Cold Cruzin'

I have just been advised that Michael Stone has moved back to the bay area (broadly speaking), and is now on the faculty at Santa Cruz.  Right down the road!

A Plethora, Nay, Dare I Say, A Veritable Cornucopia

Holy jeebus, I finally got around to looking at what Pubmed sent me for "What's new for 'Single Molecule'" last week, and there is too much there to even begin to consider reading.  Rather than try to read all of this and summarize, I just want to point out what look like some highlights based on the abstracts.  When I get a chance to read some of this later on, I'll try to fill in the details:

Force spectroscopy

• Theory, analysis, and interpretation of single-molecule force spectroscopy experiments: Olga Dudko's group updates their highly important theoretical work on interpreting non-equilibrium single molecule folding and unfolding experiments with this new paper.  From people who read the pre-print, I understand the functions they give in this paper give much more robust fits than the ones in their previous work.
  
• Length of Time's Arrow: Gavin Crooks (of the Crooks Fluctuation Theorem fame) has a paper in Phys Rev Lett which uses the reversible folding and unfolding of RNA molecules to investigate fundamental questions of why time runs in one direction.  That is some seriously hardcore physics, and one of the rare few examples of "biology in the service of physics" rather than "physics in the service of biology."  I hope I haven't forgotten too much stat mech to make heads or tails of this, but I'm going to give it my best.
• Remeasuring the Double Helix: While not strictly about force spectroscopy (nor actually single molecule, for that matter), this paper from a group here at Stanford uses small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to investigate the bending behavior of small DNA molecules, a very hot topic.  This relates to single molecule force spectroscopy because some experiments show the apparent behavior of short molecules differing markedly from the behavior seen in single molecule pulling experiments of longer molecules.  This work supports the view of Jon Widom's work (among others) showing much higher flexibility than expected for short double stranded DNAs.

Fluorescence

• Single-molecule spectroscopy of fluorescent proteins: Vijay Vinod Subramaniam is an expert on photophysics of fluorescent protein, and as these proteins are getting used more and more for single molecule assays, their photophysics in the single molecule regime are more important.  This looks interesting.
• A stochastic single-molecule event triggers phenotype switching of a bacterial cell: I haven't been following Sunney Xie's work very closely, but they have been working on single molecule detection of gene regulation, and this new work continues along that direction.  Probably worth a look-see.
  

UPDATE: A reader corrected me on Vinod Subramaniam's first name; I was thinking of the late great Vijay Pandharipande, from whom I took QM in grad school.

Article Title of the Day

Tentacle probe sandwich assay in porous polymer monolith improves specificity, sensitivity and kinetics.

Mmm...tentacle probe sandwich...

Friday Cat Blogging!

Just because I can.

New advances in single molecle NMR

A while back, I blogged about some experiments back in 2004 demonstrating detection of single spins.  Now, two back to back* papers in Nature have utilized a new method for detecting single spins at room temperature.  Nature also has a News and Views that discusses both papers.  Both techniques utilize long spin coherence states of diamond nanocrystals with single defects, which sense changes in spin tens to hundreds of nanometers away, and can be detected optically.  Optical detection is a highly desirable mechanism because of the highly developed technologies allowing reliable, low-noise detection of single photons.  And, the ability to image spins at room temperature offers hope that these techniques could be used for biological studies.

*Belly to belly!