Chemistry Studentship: Chemical origins of biological catalysis on early Earth

Award details

This is an EPSRC Doctoral Landscape Award studentship

The chemical origin of life is one of the greatest unanswered questions in the natural sciences: how did life start on early Earth several billions of years ago? The short answer is we do not know yet. What we do know is that the organic chemistry was likely to have been spectacular, so the goal of our laboratory is to elucidate these chemical processes that led to nascent biology.

Building on recent work that prebiotic reaction pathways efficiently produce a range RNA, peptide, and coenzyme precursors under simulated early Earth conditions, we want to investigate the conventional and prebiotic chemical synthesis of biological molecules with potential catalytic functions. Our goals are to develop robust and scalable chemical syntheses that are amenable to rapidly generating catalyst libraries. These will be used to investigate their organocatalytic properties in challenging prebiotic chemical reactions. This is an exciting opportunity to tackle the origin of life question using synthetic organic chemistry and analytical chemistry. You will join Dr Saidul Islam’s group: a newly established group with a fully equipped laboratory with access to a suite of latest equipment.

The Department of Chemistry at King’s College London is incredibly vibrant, friendly, highly collaborative and interdisciplinary. It is a growing department with an outstanding international reputation for research at the intersection of chemistry and biology. We welcome informal inquiries. Please see contact details below.

References:

Canavelli, P. et. al. Nature 2019, 571, 546-549.

Foden, C. S. et. al. Science 2020, 370, 865-869.

Fairchild, J. F. et. al. Science 2024, 383, 911-918.

Patel, B. H. et. al. Nature Chem, 2016, 7, 301-307.

Award value

Funding is available for up to 4 years, covering:

• Tax-free stipend set at the standard UKRI rate, currently £21,237 per annum (including London Weighting Allowance);
• Bench Fees/ Research Training Support Grant (RTSG)  allowance of approximately £4,500 per year for wet lab research;
• Tuition fees (full home or overseas tuition fees).

Eligibility criteria

The minimum requirement is a 1st class or 2:1 honours degree (MSci, MChem) or equivalent in chemistry or a closely-related subject.

Experience in synthetic chemistry, multistep synthesis, characterisation of reaction mixtures using NMR spectroscopy are desirable but not essential (training will be provided).

Good communication skills (both presentation and writing skills in English) are essential.

Candidates should be able to demonstrate an aptitude for problem solving, time management, creative thinking and independence. The ability to work in a friendly and collaborative manner is really important us.

Application process

To be considered for the position candidates must apply via King’s Apply online application system. Details are available at Department of Chemistry Postgraduate webpage

Please apply for Chemistry Research MPhil/PhD and indicate Dr Saidul Islam as the supervisor and quote the project title in your application and all correspondence.

Please ensure to add the following code: “EPSRCChem2505” in the Funding section of the application form. Please select option 5 ‘I am applying for a funding award or scholarship administered by King’s College London’ and type the code into the ‘Award Scheme Code or Name’ box. Please copy and paste the code exactly.

Selection process

The selection process will involve a pre-selection on documents and, if selected, will be followed by an invitation to an interview. If successful at the interview, an offer will be provided in due course.

If you require support with the application process please contact chemistry-pgr@kcl.ac.uk. For informal inquiries about the PhD project please contact Dr Saidul Islam (saidul.islam@kcl.ac.uk).