Undergraduate Students

CRAG “Severo Ochoa” Summer Internship Programme for Undergraduate Students of the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) is a 4 weeks international excellence programme that aims to provide an introductory and practical formation in animal and plant molecular biology to undergraduate students with a genuine interest in the field of life sciences. Stages should take place from 3 July to 28 July 2023.

Ten (10) undergraduate students will have the chance to become familiar with a broad variety of laboratory techniques and bioinformatics tools aimed to understand the structure, function and variation of plant and animal genomes.

Programme Description

Each fellow will be allocated in a scientific group at CRAG under the supervision of a principal investigator with the support of postdoc and/or experienced PhD students. She/He will be involved in a research project and will complete a brief experimental work to be presented in a program seminar at the end of the stage.

The Program includes training in transversal skills as bioinformatics, dissemination and project management given by CRAG members.

In addition, fellows will be invited to attend weekly seminars organized by CRAG and presented by prestigious international scientist in the fields of plant and animal genetics.

Participating Labs

We have 10 groups offering a position, please see below for further details:

• Environmental control of plant and algae growth – Title of the project: Shields up! Exploring regulation of photoprotection by modulating chromatin. Group Leader: Elena Monte (elena.monte@cragenomica.es).
• Plant Cell Wall Remodeling and Adaptation – Title of the project: High-throughput generation and transformation of reporter constructs for fluorescent seed selection in Arabidopsis thaliana – Group Leader: Robertas Ursache (robertas.ursache@cragenomica.es).
• Computational and synthetic biology – Title of the project: Systematic study of transcription factors (TFs) of Chlamydomonas. Group Leader: Jae-Seong Yang (jaeseong.yang@cragenomica.es).
• RNA biology – Title of the project: Identifying nuclear shuttling features of ARGONAUTE proteins. Group Leader: Nicolas Bologna (nicolas.bologna@cragenomica.es).
• Genomics of ancient crops and domestication – Title of the project: Genomic analysis of ancient flax remains to investigate the origins of linen. Group Leader: Laura Botigué (laura.botigue@cragenomica.es).
• Molecular Reprogramming and Evolution (MoRE Lab) – Title of the project: Understanding cell-type specific immunity in plants. Group Leader: Ignacio Rubio Somoza (ignacio.rubio@cragenomica.es).
• Isoprenoid Metabolism in Tomato: involvement in development and stress response – Title of the project: Unveiling the role of glycosylated sterols in tomato response to biotic stress. Group Leaders: Albert Ferrer (albert.ferrer@cragenomica.es) and Teresa Altabella (teresa.altabella@cragenomica.es).
• Rosaceae genetics and genomics – Title of the project: Marker Assisted Introgression in Prunus. Principal Investigators: Amparo Monfort (amparo.monfort@cragenomica.es) and Iban Eduardo(iban.eduardo@cragenomica.es).
• Plant Development and Signal Transduction – Title of the project: Evolution of the RAV genes along the green tree of life: their role in plant responses to environmental stresses. Group Leader: Soraya Pelaz (soraya@cragenomica.es).
• Light and temperature control of plant development – Title of the Project: Role of the clock GIGANTEA protein in adaptation of wild and cultivated potatoes to climate change conditions. Group Leader: Salome Prat (salome.prat@cragenomica.es).

Benefits

• Housing: Students from outside Barcelona will be housed free of charge in student accommodations.
• Travel costs to and from Barcelona will be covered by CRAG.
• Personal accident and civil liability insurances will be paid by CRAG. No medical insurance will be provided, so students from foreign countries must bring the European Health Insurance Card and/or a private medical insurance covering the period of the internship.

How to apply

We encourage applications from undergraduates (students from any academic program up to the level of a bachelor’s degree, including students who finish their bachelor degree in 2023) from the European Union.

Application deadline is 6 April, 2023. 

Applicants should complete and submit the on-line application through CRAGjobs.

Applicants will be asked to upload the following documents:

• Academic Records.
• A motivation letter, including an expression of interest of the candidates in life sciences and the expected outcomes and benefits of their stay at CRAG.

If available, the applicants may also provide the following documents:

• English certificate or documentation demonstrating previous stays in English speaking countries.
• Documentation related to previous stays in a research organism (e.g. letters of recommendation, presentations to meetings, etc).

Applicants will be asked to specify the names of three of the participating labs in their order of preference. While we cannot guarantee that an applicant will be assigned to any of these labs, we will make our best efforts to achieve this goal.

Applicants must upload all the required documents as PDF files of less than 10 MB.

Please note that all information must be submitted by April 6, 2023. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Selection Procedure

Candidates will be selected on the basis of their academic achievements. Fluency in English and previous experience in research will be taken into account during the selection process. Preference will be given to candidates who have not done any previous stay at CRAG.
Candidates might be interviewed by the investigator offering the position. The hosting principal investigator will make the final decision about the admission of the applicant. No selection criteria for positive or negative discrimination will be applied.

Candidates will be duly notified about the results of their application no later than the 30 April, 2023.

For any questions, you can contact with: marta.sanchez@cragenomica.es