The role is part of the Vetenskapsrådet  funded ESS Science Initiative project “Lifecycle of a Lipid Nanoparticle”,  which is a consortium of Swedish researchers from universities, research institutes, and industry with a common interest in the underlying behaviours of lipid nanoparticles as drug delivery vectors. 

The goals of this part of the project are: 

• Develop an understanding of the effect of flow on the production of lipid nanoparticles
• Develop an understanding of how environmental changes affect lipid nanoparticle structure
• Develop a microfluidics setup that can be used at ESS for experiments on lipid nanoparticles 

To achieve these goals, the postdoctoral researcher will develop proof-of-concept experiments to be run on the LoKI Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) instrument at ESS. The work will involve the development of neutron-specific microfluidics setups to support studies of the formation of lipid nanoparticles and incorporation of target molecules into the nanoparticles, and how environmental changes affect their structure. There will be strong collaboration with researchers at the Max IV synchrotron in Lund, where development of microfluidics setups for similar x-ray studies is  already under way. 

Whilst the primary location for the work will be at ESS in Lund, working with Dr. Andrew Jackson and Dr. Judith Houston, this project will be co-supervised by Dr. Hanna Barriga at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm as well as other research consortium labs, and strong interactions with the academic partners will be expected. There will be regular consortium meetings, including reporting of your results to the team.