The yeast Pichia pastoris is an industrially relevant host for the production of recombinant proteins and is well suited for the expression of many complex proteins. The production of full-length antibodies in this system still remains challenging.

The offered Master thesis will focus on the evaluation and improvement of antibody expression in P. pastoris. Genetic engineering will be used to delete or overexpress genes that have previously been found to improve the secretion of other recombinant proteins. The effect of the mutations on antibody secretion will be evaluated in small-scale cultivations followed by protein analysis.

The project offers a great opportunity to get practical experience in modern molecular biology methods like Golden Gate cloning and CRISPR/Cas9 as well as protein expression and analysis.

The work will include:
Generation of knockout and overexpression constructs using Golden Gate cloning
Genome engineering with CRISPR/Cas9
Expression of recombinant proteins in small-scale
Protein analysis by SDS-PAGE/ Western blot
Flow cytometry

We are looking for a highly motivated and ambitious Master Student who wants to join our group and is interested in this topic!

Start: February/March 2019

If you are interested please contact:

Prof. Diethard Mattanovich
Tel.: (+43) 1 / 47654-79042
email: diethard.mattanovich@boku.ac.at

Lina Heistinger
email: lina.heistinger@boku.ac.at