Acknowledgement of Country

CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our?vision towards reconciliation.

The Opportunity

• Do you have a PhD in protein structural analysis, bioinformatics, or molecular plant pathogen interactions?
• Want to conduct world class research and development with a team of dedicated professionals?
• Join CSIRO – Australia’s leading scientific research organisation!

CSIRO Early Research Career (CERC) Postdoctoral Fellowships provide opportunities to scientists and engineers who have completed their doctorate and have less than three years of relevant postdoctoral work experience. These fellowships aim to develop the next generation of future leaders of the innovation system.

This role will sit within the Crop Immunity Group at CSIRO Agriculture and Food. The group has a strong focus on rust disease resistance research with the overall goal to prevent losses in wheat production due to the impact of rust diseases through improved resistance breeding and engineered resistance approaches.

The successful candidate will focus on comparative structural analyses of rust effector proteins to identify common structural features or patterns among immune-recognised effectors. This will include applying deep learning-based effector and structure prediction tools in a computational structural biology approach to examine the evolution of novel effector variants that escape recognition and diversification of effector families in rust fungi.

Your duties will include:

• Carrying out innovative, impactful research of strategic importance to CSIRO that will, where possible, lead to novel and important scientific outcomes.
• Undertaking research investigations requiring originality, creativity and innovation to investigate structural features of rust effector proteins to shed light on the evolution of virulence and effector diversification.
• Conducting computational structure prediction, benchmarking against known structures, comparative structural analyses, and investigation of functional consequences.
• Communicating results internally through regular team meetings and group level presentations.

Location: Canberra, ACT
Salary: AU$89k - AU$98k plus up to 15.4% superannuation
Tenure: Specified term of 3 years
Reference: 79443

To be considered you will need:

• A doctorate (or will shortly satisfy the requirements of a PhD) in a relevant discipline area, such as protein structural analysis, bioinformatics or molecular plant pathogen interactions, or similar.

Please note: To be eligible for this role you must have no more than 3 years (full-time equivalent) of postdoctoral research experience.

• Detailed knowledge and research experience in molecular plant-pathogen interactions.
• Experience in applying structural and molecular biology approaches to investigate protein function in the context of their contribution to overall biological processes.
• Ability to conduct computational analysis of genome scale biological data is highly regarded.

For full details about this role please view the Position Description

Eligibility

To be eligible for this role, you must be an Australian/New Zealand Citizen, Australian Permanent Resident or Australian temporary resident currently residing in Australia and be able to commence in the role by 30 June 2022.

The successful applicant will be required to obtain and provide a National Police Check or equivalent. Additional integrity checks may be required for specific roles which require security clearance for working with children, Australian Government cybersecurity requirements or other identified security roles.

Flexible Working Arrangements

We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work. 

Diversity and Inclusion

We are working hard to recruit people representing the diversity across our society, and ensure that all our people feel supported to do their best work and feel empowered to let their ideas flourish. 

About CSIRO

At CSIRO Australia's national science agency, we solve the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. We put the safety and wellbeing of our people above all else and earn trust everywhere because we only deal in facts. We collaborate widely and generously and deliver solutions with real impact. 

Join us and start creating tomorrow today!

How to Apply

Please apply on-line and provide a cover letter and CV that best demonstrate your motivation and ability to meet the requirements of this role.

Applications Close

30 January 2022, 11:00pm AEDT