Thesis supervisor: Győző Garab
co-supervisor: Gergely Nagy
Location of studies (in Hungarian): MTA Wigner RCP, Budapest (80 %) és MTA BRC, Szeged (20 %) Abbreviation of location of studies: SzBK
Description of the research topic:
Photosynthetic organisms continuously adapt to their changing environment, requiring major structural and functional changes in their molecular machineries. Thylakoid membranes – the complex lipoprotein architecture, hosting the initial steps of the conversion of light energy – are flattened vesicular bilayer structures which are generally arranged in a multilamellar system. These membranes, due to their remarkable structural and functional flexibility, play central role in several photosynthetic adaptational and regulatory mechanisms; this has been thoroughly documented – in a significant part – with small-angle neutron scattering. Other neutron scattering techniques have been successfully applied to reveal dynamical variations in different protein complexes of the thylakoid membranes. The prospective PhD student will employ these different neutron scattering techniques and complementary optical spectroscopy tools to address several topics related to the structure, dynamics and function of plant and algal thylakoid membranes during the operation of various adaptation mechanism such as state transitions, non-photochemical quenching, balancing of different photosynthetic electrontransport pathways or temperature adaptation.
Required language skills: English Recommended language skills (in Hungarian): Hungarian Further requirements: Professional excellence, demonstrated through university achievements or master thesis work. Willingness to travel within and outside Hungary. Willingness to participate in experiments outside normal working hours.