PhD position OT-22881
PhD Opportunity: Chemosensory Regulation of Insect Clocks
78026 Versailles
INRAE presentation
The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 272 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centres throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organisations in the agricultural and food sciences, plant and animal sciences, as well as in ecology and environmental science. It is the world’s leading research organisation specialising in agriculture, food and the environment. INRAE’s goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. Faced with a growing world population, climate change, resource scarcity, and declining biodiversity, the Institute has a major role to play in building solutions and supporting the necessary acceleration of agricultural, food and environmental transitions.
Work environment, missions and activities
Are you passionate about understanding how insect clocks adapt to environmental changes? Join our research team to study the chemosensory entrainment of circadian clocks in pest moths and Drosophila. Our lab explores how chemical cues, like pheromones, influence insect biological rhythms, with implications for controlling pests in a changing climate.
Your Role: to investigate the effect of chemical mediators on circadian rhythms in pest moths & Drosophila, and reveal the mechanism of chemosensory entrainment
- Recent research in our laboratory hinted that Spodoptera‘s clockwork may sense the external environment through social cues transduced by the pheromone-sensing olfactory neurons (Ghosh, 2024, Curr Biol). You will uncover novel social cues in Spodoptera and Drosophila, and characterize their effect on the clock.
- To define the location of the central clock in the moth brain through immunocytochemistry and FISH, and trace the circuit pathways that link the higher-order chemosensory neurons with the central clock in moths and flies.
- You will determine how internal state gates the access of specific chemosensory cues to the clock will also be investigated.
- You will employ comparative neural-circuit analysis to decipher how evolution adapted the chemosensory entrainability of the clock.
Submit your CV, motivation letter, two references, degree transcripts in English, and an English language certificate via our official site: https://jobs.bc.cas.cz/en/detail/216 by 15 October 2024.
Training and skills
- Master’s degree in a relevant field.
- Background in Drosophila neurogenetics and/or insect molecular biology preferred.
- no more than 12 months of residence in FRANCE in the last 3 years
INRAE's life quality
By joining our teams, you benefit from (depending on the type of contract and its duration):
- up to 30 days of annual leave + 15 days "Reduction of Working Time" (for a full time);
- parenting support: CESU childcare, leisure services;
- skills development systems: training, career advise;
- social support: advice and listening, social assistance and loans;
- holiday and leisure services: holiday vouchers, accommodation at preferential rates;
- sports and cultural activities;
- collective catering.
How to apply
Submit your CV, motivation letter, two references, degree transcripts in English, and an English language certificate via our official site: https://jobs.bc.cas.cz/en/detail/216 by 15 October 2024.
All persons employed by or hosted at INRAE, a public research establishment, are subject to the Civil Service Code, particularly with regard to the obligation of neutrality and respect for the principle of secularism. In carrying out their functions, whether or not they are in contact with the public, they must not express their religious, philosophical or political convictions through their behaviour or by what they wear.
> Find out more: fonction publique.gouv.fr website (in French)