Award

PhD Scholarship including:

a stipend of £19,237 per year
a tuition fee waiver for three years
an annual expense allowance of £500.

Deadline

31 July 2024

Eligibility criteria

Applications will be considered based on the quality of the research proposal and its alignment with one of the projects outlined below The strengths of the individual candidate (in relation to academic competence and commitment) will be considered.
A good first degree or Master’s in biomedical science (or relevant discipline) is essential.
All non-native speakers of English must be proficient in written and spoken English.
The successful applicant will be required to undertake 150 hours of teaching related work during years two and three of study.
You must have applied for both a place on the PhD programme, as well as a scholarship by the scholarship application deadline.
The successful candidate must be available to begin their studies in October 2024 on a full-time basis.
The successful candidate must live in the UK during their studies, within commutable distance to campus.

Scholarship focus

The Section of Natural and Applied Sciences (NAS) is an interdisciplinary research department comprised of biomedical scientists, immunologists, bioinformaticians, and wildlife and ecology biologists, focused on research addressing current global challenges faced by society and the planet, ranging from health and disease to new ways to protect the natural world. Within the Biomedical Science theme, the department has research priorities in immunology, allergic responses, cancer biology, and stress responses.

Blood cells play important functions in the body, including transport of oxygen and nutrients, mounting immune responses against foreign pathogens, and formation of blood clots to stop bleeding. The subversion of these normal functions of blood cells leads to a variety of blood and immunological disorders, including allergies and anaphylaxis, autoimmune disorders, and blood cancers.

This PhD project will focus on studying the molecular and cellular processes that govern the behaviour of healthy cells of the blood system, explore how perturbations in this behaviour contribute to specific blood disorders, and develop novel therapies to combat these conditions. The project will combine state-of-the-art cell culture approaches on primary human cells and physiologically-relevant cell lines with modern molecular and cellular approaches to develop a programme of work aimed at defining key vulnerabilities of a blood disorder which can be therapeutically targetable.

The scholarship will be awarded to one applicant who will be involved in one of the following projects. Applicants should indicate their preference in their application.

1. AllergoOncology: Elucidating novel anti-cancer roles of human allergic effector cells

Epidemiological studies indicate an inverse association between allergies and certain cancers. The aim of this project is to elucidate the role of basophils, and other allergic effector cells (e.g. eosinophils), in various cancers.

The project will include investigating the cytotoxic functions of basophils on various human cancer cell lines, their ability to modulate the anti-cancer functions of other cytotoxic immune cells, and the effects of cancer-derived immune checkpoint regulators on basophil function.

Together with clinical collaborators, we further aim to investigate the differential localisation of basophils in various cancer tissues ex vivo in view of assessing their role as prognostic biomarkers.

For more information on this project, please contact Professor Bernhard Gibbs.

2. Design and development of oncogenic calreticulin inhibitors for treatment of myeloid neoplasms

Oncogenic calreticulin is a tumour-specific molecule that is present in patients with the pre-leukaemic condition called myelofibrosis. The student will be working with an early-stage chemotherapeutic compound that is capable of neutralising calreticulin.

The aims of the project will be to solve the biochemical structure of the anti-calreticulin drug and to test its anti-tumour activity and pharmacokinetic properties on patient samples and physiologically-relevant disease models.

For more information on this project, contact Dr. Edwin Chen.

How to apply

Please discuss your research ideas with a potential supervisor ahead of applying.  
Potential supervisors can be found on our website.
You will be required to submit a research proposal and asked to interview with a potential supervisor in the faculty.
Please fill in a research proposal form.
Submit your application via our website.
- Click on the Apply now button in the blue bar.
- Select ‘Science, Information Technology and Engineering’ for the area of research.
- Select 'Sciences' for your subject area.
- Select full-time study and October 2024 as a start date.
- Tick the box on the proposal form to indicate application for a scholarship alongside a place on the PhD programme.

For any queries about the application and admissions process please contact Postgraduate Admissions.