Applications for the 2021/22 Year in Industry scheme are now closed.
These 12 month placements are paid positions and will provide successful students with an opportunity to work on a research or development project within Diamond. The placements will be paid at a rate in excess of £19,000pa on a pro-rata basis. Placements will commence in September 2021.
In your application you can apply for up to three projects from those listed. Please click on each of the projects to find out more information.
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Investigating a Sialic Acid Derivative import and untilisation pathway in a bacterial respiratory pathogen
The SARS-Cov-2 pandemic has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives to date and remains one of the unprecedented global health emergencies of this century. Amongst the public, it is generally unrecognised that 50% of the fatalities during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic are caused by untreated or untreatable secondary bacterial infections, in most cases in the lung (Zhou et al., 2020). S. pneumoniae, H. influenzae, are amongst some of the most commonly isolated bacteria during secondary infections. Our laboratory studies metabolite uptake systems in these bacteria with the aim of providing structural and biochemical data for antimicrobial development and treatment regimens that are still sorely needed in the light of the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic.
To apply for this project, select “21001Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Cryo-electron tomography and correlative super-resolution light microscopy of neurons
This project will use state-of-the-art optical and electron microscopy at Diamond Light Source (DLS) to provide molecular information on complex neuronal processes.
In the project we want to investigate a dynamin-like structure surrounding and interconnecting synaptic vesicles. Synaptic vesicles are located in the synapse, the end terminal part of a neuron responsible for signal transduction. Synaptic vesicles contain small signalling molecules – neurotransmitter – that upon fusion with the plasma membrane release their content into the synaptic cleft and further to the neighbouring postsynapse. The vesicles are interconnected by so-called connectors of partly unknown protein composition and one potentially being dynamin.
To apply for this project, select “21002Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Engineering the development of a beamline sample enviromment to allow integrated diffraction and spectrophotometric studies of biological macromolecules
Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) uses the diffraction of focussed X-rays to determine the structure of biological molecules. A complex set of remotely operated motions is focussed into a small sample volume to enable this technique. The aim of this project is to design and manufacture a support for a spectrophotometer that is compatible with the X-ray diffraction experiments performed at MX beamline I04. This will enable simultaneous diffraction and UV-vis spectroscopy measurements to describe the mechanism of enzyme reactions.
To apply for this project, select “21003Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Methods for initiating and following substrate driven reactions in macromolecular crystallography
The project will exploit serial synchrotron crystallography (SSX) to probe non-reversible reactions in proteins. Typically, crystallography provides a single static snapshot of a molecule. By delivering substrate to a protein crystal and then collecting data at a series of time delays afterwards, a series of snapshots are obtained and a molecular stop motion movie of the protein in action can be formed. Experiments of this type are challenging however as substrate must be delivered in a reproducible manner to large numbers of well characterised crystals and, furthermore, diffusion rates can vary from sample-to-sample and substrate-to-substrate. In this project, a collaboration between I24 and the XFEL-Hub, the student will develop methods for mixing ligand/substrate with protein microcrystals for time-resolved SSX at I24 and beyond.
To apply for this project, select “21004Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Contemporary GiSAXS Data analysis for I22
The synchrotron at Diamond Light Source facilitates access to a variety of techniques for analysing matter, ranging in complexity from ideal, model systems through to real-world applications. This broad spectrum of analytical techniques presents a unique challenge; the unification of many different, disparate, software packages to work together in unison providing our users with the information they desire, as quickly as possible.
To apply for this project, select “21005Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Embedding benchmarking and quantification capability into Savu software
Savu is a Python package, developed in the Data Analysis Group, to assist with the processing and reconstruction of parallel-beam tomography data. There has been a lot of recent interest in Savu in the greater tomography community, both on-site (more Diamond beamlines, IMAT@ISIS and CLF), at Universities and internationally at other synchrotrons (MAX IV, PETRA III, NSLS II) and the range of experiments that Savu can process is subsequently growing. Its popularity is gained from its flexibility, with collaborators encouraged to develop their own methods or integrate existing ones, in the form of Savu plugins.
As the number of plugins (and methods) increases in Savu, it is important to ensure the integrity of these methods to produce robust scientific output. It is also possible to have multiple implementations of the same method, where the implementation of choice is often based on familiarity rather than scientific rigour. All too often there is no mention of the accuracy of a processing method in a scientific paper, which is critical to ensuring the authenticity of the result.
To apply for this project, select “21006Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Crystalline metal organic frameworks containing organic semiconductors
Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have applications from gas storage through catalysis to the destruction of chemical warfare agents. Most of the work around the world into MOFs is almost exclusively in solution environments. This leads to MOFs structures which are either macroscopic single crystals, powders comprised of small crystallites or a mixture of the two. In final devices and, eventually, products for real world use these are not the most useful forms of MOFs as making devices around them or re-processing them is costly and time consuming. Some of the most useful morphologies of active materials for real world use are thin films – both because they use much less material than large crystals and because they have large surface area to total volume ratios. This is well demonstrated by light emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) which can be found in monitors, mobile phones and other display technologies.
To apply for this project, select “21007Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Automated sample tracking and mapping for high-throughput synchrotron experiments at Diamond
The aim of this project is to develop a suite of software tools enabling greater automation and improving user friendliness of the high-throughput X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) endstation at the VerSoX B07-B beamline. This endstation is designed to cater to a range of experiments and sample types, from single samples which require complex preparation procedures, to arrays of multiple (~20) samples which require rapid screening-type measurements.
To apply for this project, select “21008Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
One-click sample alignment in the transmission electron microscope: simulating and analysing Kikuchi diffraction patterns
The aim of this project is to provide tools for easy tilting of samples on to major zone-axes in the transmission electron microscope.
In order to obtain high-resolution images in the transmission electron microscope, crystalline samples have to be oriented on to a major zone-axis, i.e. with the electron beam oriented along atomic columns. This can be achieved by using Kikuchi diffraction patterns to orient the sample. Kikuchi bands are formed from diffuse inelastic scattering in thick regions of the sample, with bands connecting major zone-axes. However, Kikuchi patterns vary for different crystal systems and finding the correct zone-axis at the microscope can be difficult without a map to guide the operator.
To apply for this project, select “21009Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Analysis of beam instabilities for the updgrade of the Diamond Storage Ring
Diamond Light Source is planning an upgrade of the existing storage ring to provide more and better light to experiments. To keep the electrons circulating inside the ring they have to travel inside a vacuum chamber, but then the electrons induce electromagnetic fields inside the chamber that act back on the electrons themselves. Depending on the machine settings this can cause the beam to become unstable, which reduces the performance of the machine or can even cause the beam to be completely lost. It is therefore necessary during the design process to simulate different machine settings and analyse the conditions for when the beam becomes unstable to be able to avoid instabilities in the real machine.
To apply for this project, select “21010Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Active damping of high precision instrumentation 1: electronics and measurements
High precision instrumentation is widely used to perform scientific experiments at Diamond, where a small x-ray beam needs to be focused on very small samples, to be able to resolve the size of viruses, proteins and materials at the micro- and nanoscale.
This instrumentation requires a very high degree of stability to minimize the influence of vibration on the experimental results, and sometimes the external disturbances exceed the required performance – for this reason, active stabilisation is often required with a so-called “mechatronics” approach, that combines the understanding of mechanical, electronics and control system to reach an optimal solution.
To apply for this project, select “21011Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
Active damping of high precision instrumentation 2: mechatronics
High precision instrumentation is widely used to perform scientific experiments at Diamond, where a small x-ray beam needs to be focused on very small samples, to be able to resolve the size of viruses, proteins and materials at the micro- and nanoscale.
This instrumentation requires a very high degree of stability to minimize the influence of vibration on the experimental results, and sometimes the external disturbances exceed the required performance – for this reason, active stabilisation is often required with a so-called “mechatronics” approach, that combines the understanding of mechanical, electronics and control system to reach an optimal solution.
To apply for this project, select “21012Y” on our recruitment portal.
Remember that you can apply for up to three projects in your application, if you wish.
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