PET Alpha-Sy project - PhD fellows in Organic Chemistry / Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry (more information)

Elysia-Raytest and University of Liege are offering a three-year PhD fellowship in organic chemistry/radiopharmaceutical chemistry. The PhD fellowships are financed by the EU via a MC-ITN-ETN action. As such, the PhD fellowships are a part of a training program PET-AlphaSy consisting in total 15 PhD students located in 5 European countries (Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium). The PhD fellowships will attend common training sessions, e.g. within radiopharmaceutical chemistry or imaging and have secondments at the corresponding partner universities. The fellowships are available from 1 March 2019 or as soon as possible thereafter.

 More information can be found on https://www.alphasy.eu/.

About PET-AlphaSY

Our consortium has assembled 6 radiopharmaceutical frontline academic and 10 non-academic partners to train the next generation of radiopharmaceutical scientists. Our training will be focused on an unmet scientific need for Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Fibril formation of protein α-synuclein is thought to be the hallmark for PD, but presently, there are no validated PET tracers available for visualization of pathogenic aggregates of this protein. Our scientific goal is to develop such tracer. A successful tracer will have a strong impact on PD-diagnosis and facilitate the development of effective disease modifying treatments. To reach our goals, it is necessary to train our early stage researchers in a highly interdisciplinary fashion spanning from chemistry, over biology, GMP and pharmacy to nuclear medicine.

Eligibility criteria

- The researcher must not have resided or carried out his/her main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of his/her host organization for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to his/her recruitment - unless as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention [1].

- The researcher must be Early Stage Researcher (ESR): at time of recruitment he/she must be in the first 4 years (full-time equivalent research experience) of his/her research careers and must not have been awarded a doctoral degree.

Further requirements

We are looking for a dedicated and skilled individual with the following qualifications:

• Obtained a master’s degree, preferably within chemistry or pharmacy. To be considered for the position, it is a condition that your master’s degree is considered as equivalent to a Belgian Master’s degree.
• Fluency in English.

About ELYSIA

Elysia-Raytest is a company specialized and leader in quality control for radiopharmaceutical in a worldwide market.  Elysia-Raytest headquarter, radiochemistry laboratory and R&D center is based in Liege, Belgium within the University of Liege campus.

Elysia-Raytest has identified the need to improve the user-friendliness and efficient workflow in Quality Control laboratories for Nuclear Medicine and radio-pharmaceutical producers and meets these needs through the development of new detection technology and intuitively designed LIMS systems.

Elysia's Hot-lab and the Demonstration Laboratory in Liège (Belgium) allow faster and more efficient quality product development. In addition to software and hardware solutions, Elysia also proposes a large range of services including training and method development.

By presenting the QC-CUBICLE turnkey QC-system to the market in 2015, Elysia-raytest reached an important milestone in becoming a leading integrated solution provider.

NRU wishes our staff to reflect the diversity of society and thus welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.

 About GIGA-CRC (Cyclotron Research Center), University of Liege 

Researches at GIGA – CRC (Cyclotron Research Center) in vivo imaging range from radiopharmaceutical production to in vivo imaging with positron emission tomography and also with magnetic resonance imaging and electrophysiology.  Studies are conducted in small animals for brain, cancer or cardiology preclinical researches and for drug development, and in humans for understanding biological processes underlying sleep, mood, addiction, cognition (memory, attention, executive functions), movements, consciousness and their disorders (dementia, Parkinson, impaired consciousness, epilepsy…).

 About the research 

The research topic is the development of &-syn selective ligands within a convergent multicenter approach. The first part of the research will be dedicated to the development of synthesis pathway to prepare the candidate ligands and labeling precursors for radiolabeling with 3-H, 18-F or any other relevant radioisotopes. The researcher will have access to NMR, Mass spectrometer, HPLC and standard organic laboratory instruments to characterize his compounds.  The biological properties of the prepared compounds will be evaluated in collaboration with the other groups involved in the PET AlphaSY project (affinity, pharmacokinetic, in vivo evaluation in an animal model). 

 Terms of employment 

Employment will start February 1^st 2019, or before.

The terms of employment and salary are in accordance with Belgian regulations and according to the rules and regulations laid down by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action European Training Network. 

 Application 

The application must include a cover letter, a curriculum vitae, a list of peer reviewed publications, as well as possible letters of recommendation and diplomas.

The closing date for applications will be 15 December 2018. Candidates must submit their application electronically via info@elysia-raytest.com.

[1] 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol