The project                

The MicroCAM project explores how bacteria and other microorganisms stick to surfaces, especially where water meets oil, like in polluted water or industrial fluids. This sticking process is often the first step in forming biofilms, which are dense communities of microbes that can either help us (e.g., in cleaning up oil spills) or cause problems (such as infections or equipment fouling). Understanding how and why microbes attach to surfaces is essential for improving technologies and addressing health and environmental challenges.

A decisive factor in explaining bacterial adsorption and biofilm formation is how their outer surface interacts with water, i.e., whether it "likes" water (hydrophilic) or "repels" it (hydrophobic). Surprisingly, despite a century of research, scientists still struggle to measure this property accurately. MicroCAM aims to fix this by developing a new way to directly look at single microbial cells and measure how they interact with the interface between oil and water. This will be done using a highly specialized form of electron microscopy, which allows us to "freeze" the interface and then take detailed images of where and how individual microbes attach, which will allow us to calculate the hydrophobicity of individual bacteria. We will extend this method to image bacteria that bind to oil surfaces through appendages at a distance to elucidate, for the first time, how bacteria might grab a liquid interface from a distance. In addition, MicroCAM will explore how microbes change their surface behavior by releasing substances called biosurfactants. These natural chemicals can make microbes more likely to stick to oily surfaces. 

Your job

For 3.5-4 years, you will research a Ph.D., during this time you will be part of a team developing the new methodology for investigating bacterial hydrophobicity and liquid interface interactions. You will apply it to a set of bacteria chosen for their different surface and adhesion properties, according to what is currently assumed in the literature, and test whether the commonly assumed but never proven ideas regarding their properties are true. You will focus on testing hypotheses regarding their adsorption to oil-water interfaces; How they bind to oil-water interfaces is mainly unknown but essential for understanding infection, bioprocessing, and biodegradation. Your main technique will be (cryo) electron microscopy, but you will use a range of other characterization techniques from microbiology, biophysics, and physical chemistry as well.