Výzva na podávanie žiadostí o postdoktorandské pobyty

Call for applications for postdoctoral positions
at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Comenius University

General Information:

Here advertised positions resulted from the succesful projects within the „Call for postdoctoral positions at the Comenius University 2023-2024“ by the rector of the   Comenius University in accordance with the Internal Directive VP UK 3/2020. Minimum guaranteed yearly income (brutto) is 20247 EUR, plus further benefits in the amount of 7128 EUR that includes social security and health insurance paid by the employer.  Positions are cofinanced by the Faculty of Natural Sciences and the final salary may be higher depending on the availabilty of resources from individual grants of the supervisors.

Eligibility:

There is no geographic limitation for these positions. Applicants must have a PhD. (or equivalent) degree that was received less than three years prior to the expected starting date of the appointment. PhD holders from the Comenius University in Bratislava are not eligible.

Appointment Start Date:

Expected start date for the job was set to October 1st, 2023. Possible postponing should be individually negotiated by the supervisor.

Duration:

Initial work contract will be signed for one year, with possible extension depending on the available resources and the recommendation by the supervisor. 

Required Documents:

Completed application should include

i) Cover letter including motivation

ii)  Independent recommendation letters (sent via e-mail directly by recommending persons to the supervisor) – at least one, maximum three.

iii)  Curriculum vitae (biographical sketch) that includes details on your education and training to date, Visa status (if applicable), your experimental/programming experience, a bibliography of any publications

iv) Proof of receiving of the PhD (or equivalent) degree (e. g. scan of the diploma)

Application deadline:

Applications should be sent via e-mail to supervisors before June 23, 2023.

 

Open positions:

 

Department of Organic Chemistry

Project: Application of persistant carbocations in organic synthesis toward novel complex structures

• Relatively stable carbocationic species have been regularly utilized in organic synthetic procedures. They are usually considered to be unstable intermediates, however, carbocations with delocalized π-systems can be sufficiently stable even under non-inert or aqueous conditions and can be isolated/purified for further applications. Their Lewis acidic nature, which can be modified on demand by varying their structure, makes them suitable electrophilic reagents. In this context, reactions of stabilized carbocations with enols, enamines, and other nucleophiles have been described. Their adjustable electrophilicity also gives the opportunity to utilize them as Lewis catalysts. In line with the global need for more sustainable and environmentally benign chemical transformations, we aim to study the usability of non-traditional activation methods (microwave irradiation, mechanochemical activation) for the utilization of guaiazulene-based stable carbocations in organic transformations.

Supervisor: Assistant Prof. Mária Mečiarová, maria.meciarovauniba.sk

Desired qualifications and competences:

• documented experience in organic synthesis

• ability to plan, execute, and analyze syntheses of multifunctional compounds, including isolation, purification and spectroscopic characterization of products. Experience with with catalysis, handling of organometallics and chiral compounds is highly welcome

• profesional knowledge of written and spoken English language

 

Project: Development of the missing drug for life-threatening complications caused by diabetes mellitus - optimization of the pharmacological properties of the original nM ALR2 inhibitor with excellent selectivity towards ALR1

• This project is continuation of our ALR2 inhibitors research. Hyperglycemia-induced excessive ALR2 activity is associated with the development of serious complications of diabetes mellitus. ALR2 hyperactivity causes severe damage to blood vessels, heart, eyes, kidneys, nerves. Diabetes affects > 422 million people with 1.5 million annual deaths (WHO). We have recently discovered several new low molecular weight triazinoindole based ALR2 inhibitors with excellent nanomolar activity and ALR2 selectivity over detoxifying antitarget ALR1 (JMCH 2020 63 369-81, BMCH 2021 29 115885, Molecules 2021 26 2867, PP50074-2020, WO2022/132058 A1). These compounds can be well optimized in terms of pharmaco-kinetics and -dynamics properties. The aim of the project is to develop high quality drug candidates dedicated for further preclinical assays. We aim to investigate also antitumor properties of our ALR2 inhibitors and identify other innovative ALR2 inhibitors by the rational structure-based drug design.

Supervisor: Associated Prof. Andrej Boháč, andrej.bohacuniba.sk

Desired qualifications and competences:

• PhD degree in organic chemistry, publicationsin organic synthesis, bioorganic and medicinal chemistry, natural product synthesis, organic reaction methodologies, heterocyclic chemistry, anticancer products, and experiences with molecular docking is highly welcome
  
  
• previous longer (3 months or more) research stay at different as home university abroad is highly welcome
  
  
• an active knowledge of good written and spoken English language is required
  
  
• ability to independently propose target focused bioactive structures, to plan and execute research subprojects, to isolate, purify reaction mixtures, completely characterize structure of products and intermediates and to explain mechanism of reactions is required

 

 

Department of Inorganic Chemistry

Project: Coordination Compounds of S,N-Heteroaromatics Possessing Intramolecular Charge Transfer for Two-Photon Excited Bioimaging, Photodynamic Therapy and Theranostic Applications

• Molecules with significant two-photon absorption (TPA) serve as active components in modern laser technologies. Extensive TPA cross-sections combined with excellent luminescence can be achieved by using small building blocks based on S,N-heteroaromatics with a proper arrangement of electron-donating substituents, and by complexation of these scaffolds featuring intramolecular charge transfer with selected metal ions, where the most efficient derivatives / substitution patterns can be identified using computer-aided screening (rational design based on quantum-chemical calculations). The aim of the project is to functionalize our recently developed TPA-active heteroaromatic dyes in order to obtain other essential properties, such as increased solubility in polar media, introduction of spin-orbit coupling allowing spin-forbidden singlet-triplet transition and production of highly reactive singlet dioxygen and / or prolongation of excited-state lifetime to the microsecond time domain (transition from fluorescence to phosphorescence). These attributes, in conjunction with TPA activity, will facilitate the use of the developed systems in practical applications, with a special focus on multichannel nonlinear imaging of biological structures by high-resolution TPEF microscopy and photodynamic therapy using deep-penetrating near-infrared laser radiation. For more information, see: https://qchemlab.wordpress.com

Supervisor: Dr. Peter Hrobárik, peter.hrobarikuniba.sk

Desired qualifications and competences:

• PhD degree in chemistry

• Well documented experience in microgram to multigram scale organic synthesis, with a particular focus on heteroaromatic compounds and/or coordination chemistry

• Experience with modern methods of chemical synthesis, including cross-coupling reactions and Schlenk techniques

• Ability to plan, execute and analyze synthesis of multifunctional compounds

• Experience in NMR and UV-vis characterizations

• Professional knowledge of written and spoken English language

• Ability to work in team

 

Department of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

Project: Determination of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Parameters of Spin-Orbit-coupled Diamagnetic Substances Using the Modern X2C Hamiltonian

• The Department of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry is looking for one excellentPostdoctoral Research Fellow to work on the research project "Determination of NuclearMagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Parameters of Spin-Orbit-coupled DiamagneticSubstances Using the Modern X2C Hamiltonian". The successful candidate is expected towork on the development, implementation, and application of a relativistic two-componentDFT methodology for the calculation of NMR parameters in diamagnetic systems. Themethodology will be implemented in the computer simulation program ReSpect(www.respectprogram.org).

Supervisor: Dr. Michal Repisky, michal.repiskyuniba.sk

Desired qualifications and competences:

• PhD degree in theoretical/computational chemistry or physics, computational materialsscience, or applied mathematics.

• Documented experience with method development in theoretical/computational chemistry or physics
  
  
• Professional knowledge of written and spoken English language
  
  
• Ability to work in team