Description of Hosting Institution (UJA – Spain)

Jaén University (UJA) was created in 1993 and is in the Top 50 of the world’s best young universities according to THE (Times Higher Education). This ranking analyzes aspects such as teaching, research work, the university’s international outreach, or integration into industry. Besides, the UJA has received the distinction of Campus of International Excellence in the fields of Agrifood (CEIA3) and Climate Change (CamBio), plus it also leads the Andalusian CEI project on historical heritage PatrimoniUN10.

Jaén University has five faculties (Social and Legal Sciences; Humanities and Education Sciences; Health Sciences; Experimental Sciences and Social Work) and two higher polytechnic schools for engineering (Linares and Jaén). In turn, these centers are organized into 35 departments. It also has three Postgraduate educational centers (Doctorate School, Advanced Study Center in Modern Languages and Postgraduate Study Center).

In regards to its research, there are five specialized centers at Jaén University. Besides, the full picture of the over 100 UJA groups covers the following research fields of expertise (https://www.ujaen.es/servicios/ofipi/uja-ri-expertise): Agrifood (AGR); Biology (BIO); Health (CTS); Social Sciences, Business, Law (SEJ); Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics (FQM); Humanities (HUM); Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (RNM); Information and Communications Technology (TIC); and Engineering Production Technology (TEP).

As far the UJA hosting offer is concerned, Prof. ANTONIO MOLINA DÍAZ (amolina@ujaen.es) would be willing to host post-doctoral researchers that are funded through the H2020 MSCA-IF 2019 call for applications to be part of the following research team:

UJA hosting research group (https://bit.ly/2FljACB)

The candidate will be integrated as a post-doctoral scientist in the research group, headed by Professor Antonio Molina-Diaz. The staff of the Analytical Chemistry group consists of ca. 10 scientists (2 Full-Professors, 1 Associate Professors, 2 postdoctoral research scientists, 4 Ph.D. students and 3 MSc students). One of the main research interests of the Analytical Chemistry research group is the development of analytical methods based on hyphenated techniques (GC-MS and LC-MS) for application in various fields such as environmental and food industry. The Analytical Chemistry Research Group is currently funded by different projects from the Spanish Research Council. During the last 5 years the host group has published some 75 scientific papers in (JCR) peer reviewed journals. The head of the group has been cited over 6200 times according to Scopus database. He has been Editor of a RSC Journal (Analytical Methods) and has mentored over 90 students during his 30-year-academic career. The host group also has close collaborations with different research groups from Europe (Germany, Cyprus, Poland, Hungary, France, Portugal and Spain) and The United States, and have current funding from H2020 program (through project TimPANI 2018-2021). Another strength of the hosting group is the world-class infrastructure available to undertake the proposed project including the following mass spectrometry systems: a nanoHPLC-Q-Exactive-MS system, 1 CE and HPLC-QTOF-MS/MS system (Agilent 6530), 1 HPLC-QQQ-MS/MS (Thermo TSQ Quantiva), 1 HPLC-TOFMS (Agilent 6220), 1 LC-MS/MS ion trap (Bruker Esquire HCT), a GC-MS (Thermo DSQ), and a GC-QQQ-MS/MS (Varian 320 MS).

Project description

Despite the outstanding potential of liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for trace organic contaminant analysis in food and environment, yet presents some drawbacks affecting its performance. Amongst these limitations we can highlight:

• Problems associated with compound detection and sensitivity due to matrix effects and signal suppression
• Chromatographic issues when dealing with species with different polarity and/or physical properties limiting their retention in reversed-phase liquid chromatography
• Limitations of LC-MS for the detection of nonpolar species or those which are non amenable by electrospray (LC-MS).

The aim of the research project is to provide novel approaches in order to increase the performance of LC-MS with a special emphasis on its application to the determination of pesticides and other contaminants in food. The approaches proposed are:

• The use of nanoflow liquid chromatography high resolution mass spectrometry (nanoHPLC-HRMS)
• The use of parallel chromatographic systems (HILIC/RPLC-HRMS) enabling the simultaneous separation of different species which completely different polarities and/or hydrophobicity
• The evaluation of novel DBDI ionization sources with liquid chromatography (LC-DBDI-MS) to expand the array of species that can be analyzed in a single run, including those which require gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.

The proposal addresses some of the challenges plotted in the current European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (Horizon 2020). In particular, the effort towards better food quality and food safety, through research aiming the establishment of novel technologies and methodologies enabling a better control of the food we consume.

Application procedure

CV, Motivation letter and Summary of project proposal (250 words) by 14th June 2019 to ofipi@ujaen.es. Further information regarding the application requirements can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/actions/individual-fellowships_en & https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/msca-if-2019.