An international consortium, including a research group at the School of Medicine at the
Universitat de Barcelona (UB), the Functional Unit of Thoracic Tumors at the Hospital Clínic
de Barcelona (HCB), and the swiss start-up technological company Artidis in Basel (Artidis) are
looking for an Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) biotechnician to work on a 18 month project.
Job purpose
Solid tumors are often detected macroscopically by surgeons and even patients through manual
palpation due to their increased stiffness. Researchers of this consortium showed few years ago
that the same idea applies at the nanoscale, since characterizing the local nanomechanical
properties of tissue biopsies with AFM could distinguish between normal and tumor tissue
(Plodinec et al, Nat Nanotech 2012). Likewise, other researchers of this consortium have
extensive experience in mechanical measurements of cells and other tissue components with
AFM (Alcaraz et al, EMBO J 2008) and in the clinical management of lung cancer (Majem et
al. Clinical and Translational Oncology 2019.). The main goal of this study is to assess the
potential for fast diagnosis of the nanomechanical profiling of lung cancer specimens obtained
from surgical patients by AFM. For this purpose, the technician will use an state-of-the-art AFM
specifically designed for fast measurement of nanomechanical properties of fresh tissue samples.
The project is expected to last 18 months, with the possibility of an extension depending on the
results obtained. The project will involve interacting with professionals at the Hospital Clinic
and at Artidis, including an initial training at the Artidis headquarters in Basel.
More info here
Job description here
Application – Contact
The initial closing date for this application is September 15th 2020. We encourage applicants to
submit their application as soon as possible.
We look forward to receiving your online application with CV, motivation letter, academic
grades, and support letters (including names and contact information (email, address)) of 2–3
referees (one of them must be the supervisor of the end of degree project and end of master
project, if applicable).
Please, send your application by email to Jordi Alcaraz (jalcaraz@ub.edu) with the email subject:
AFM JOB OFFER + your name.