Development engineer

The Bordeaux Imaging Center (BIC, UMS 3420) is the largest microscopy facility in Aquitaine. The BIC’s optic hub provides service and training on more than 20 optical microscopes to a large community of researchers in the public and private biomedical field. Their biological samples can be observed at scales ranging from centimeters, like in whole organ imaging, to nanometers, like in single molecules tracking. The development team of the optic hub is dedicated to the design and implementation of cutting-edge imaging techniques that are not available at the local scientific community, thus providing access to the most advanced technologies. In this context, sample preparation is one of the specialties of the facility. In particular, we have great expertise in the fields of tissue transparency and expansion microscopy (ExM). ExM is a relatively recent method of super-resolution developed by Ed Boyden’s team at the MIT, US. In this method, the sample is fixed and embedded in an expandable hydrogel that dilates by a factor of 4 to 20 folds, in order to obtain super-resolved images with standard microscopy techniques (epifluorescence, confocal). We can thus increase the spatial resolution by 4-20 times. In addition, ExM can be combined with other classic super-resolution techniques (STED, dSTORM) to achieve a final resolution below 10 nm. With this methodology, we can obtain multi-color 3D images with unprecedented resolution.

We are looking for an engineer to develop ExM protocols and labelling strategies on organotypic slices of mouse hippocampus. This contract is part of a project of the National Research Agency in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Institute of Neurosciences of Bordeaux Neurocampus. We plan to implement iterative expansion protocols (x20) and new labelling strategies of specific synaptic proteins to find their distribution and organisation at
the nanoscale. We are recruiting a highly motivated engineer to work in bio-photonics projects, with good knowledge of biology, biochemistry and neuroscience, and familiar with the basic principles of fluorescence microscopy acquisition and image analysis.

If you are interested, please send a motivation letter and a CV to
Mónica Fernández Monreal