The research projects below are in competition for funding. The projects with the best applicants will be awarded the funding. The funding is only available to applicants that meet the criteria.

Non-UK Students: In most cases if you have the correct qualifications and access to your own funding, either from your home country or your own finances, your application to work with these supervisors will be considered.

Click on the links below to view PhD projects in those areas

Food Security

• Proteins regulating shape and function of the plant endoplasmic reticulum (Supervised by Dr Lorenzo Frigerio)
• Biogenesis of protein storage vacuoles (Supervised by Dr Lorenzo Frigerio)
• Understanding the evolution of nitrogen fixation in plants (Supervised by Dr Miriam Gifford)
• Timing and disease: interaction between the circadian clock and plant defence (Supervised by Dr Isabelle Carre)
• Control of Flowering by the DNF gene (Supervised by Dr Stephen Jackson)
• Testing Arabidopsis stress response networks: translation to crop via natural variation (Supervised by Prof. Vicky Buchanan-Wollaston and Dr Graham Teakle)
• Analysis of leaf senescence in wheat,from model to crop (Supervised by Prof. Vicky Buchanan-Wollaston)
• Deciphering the gene regulatory network around ANAC083, a key plant stress tolerance gene (Supervised by Dr Katherine Denby)
• Compound screening and Selectivity in a Hormone Receptor Complex (Supervised by Prof. Richard Napier and Prof. Vilmos Fulop)
• How does post-translational modification of proteins impact on responses to the environment in plants? (Supervised by Dr Miriam Gifford, Prof. Richard Napier and Dr Ari Sadanandom)
• Environmental Epigenetic memory in plants (Supervised by Dr Jose Gutierrez-Marcos and Dr Sascha Ott)
• Cell sorting to refine gene networks controlling plant stress responses (Supervised by Dr Miriam Gifford and Prof. Vicky Buchanan-Wollaston)
• Association mapping to identify and clone matching avirulent effector genes in the downy mildew pathogen, Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis and resistance genes in the host plant, Arabidopsis thaliana (Supervised by Prof. Jim Beynon and Dr Mary Coates)
• ER stress-induced programmed cell death as transducer of environmental stress tolerance in plants and as supporter of mutualistic symbioses (Supervised by Dr Patrick Schäfer)

• Molecular strategies of the mutualistic fungus Piriformospora indica to suppress root innate immunity in a broad spectrum of plants (Supervised by Dr Patrick Schäfer)

• The role of alternative splicing in plant disease resistance (Supervised by Dr Katherine Denby)

• Role of chromatin remodelling in host- microbe interactions (Supervised by Dr. Vardis Ntoukakis)
• Natural Product Inspired Crop Protection: Discovery and Evaluation of New Herbicides (Supervised by Prof. Mike Shipman and Dr Paul Neve)

• How do flies and butterflies select their host plants? (Supervised by Dr Rosemary Collier)

• Optimising strategies for Estimated Breeding Values in pedigree sheep with particular reference to maternal traits (Supervised by Prof. Laura Green and Dr Kathy Moore)

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Bioenergy and Industrial Biotechnology

• Comparative structural analyses of the flavin-containing monooxygenase family (Supervised by Prof. Vilmos Fulop and Dr Yin Chen)
• Central carbon pathways of Streptomyces: identification, characterisation and metabolic engineering (Supervised by Prof. David Hodgson and Prof. Elizabeth Wellington)

Environmental

• Viral infection of marine picoplankton: pseudolysogeny and magic spot nucleotides (Supervised by Prof. Dave Scanlan University of Warwick, and Dr Martha Clokie University of Leicester)
• Metaexoproteome of soil: characterisation of extracellular proteinsinvolved in the degradation of polymers (Supervised by Prof. Liz Wellington)
• Comparative and functional genomics of the bacterial degradation of the climate-cooling gas dimethylsulfide (DMS) (Supervised by Dr Hendrik Schaefer)
• Environmental genomics and functional diversity of microbial dimethylsulfide degradation (Supervised by Dr Hendrik Schaefer)
• What are the bases of phenotypic plasticity in asexual organisms? (Supervised by Dr Jose Gutierrez-Marcos and Prof. Alan Tunnacliffe)
• Unravelling the mechanism of microbial-mediated oceanic dimethylamine emissions (Supervised by Dr Yin Chen)

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Molecular Systems Biology

• Viral infection of marine picoplankton: pseudolysogeny and magic spot nucleotides (Supervised by Prof. Dave Scanlan University of Warwick, and Dr Martha Clokie University of Leicester)
• Metaexoproteome of soil: characterisation of extracellular proteins involved in the degradation of polymers (Supervised by Prof. Liz Wellington)
• Timing and disease: interaction between the circadian clock and plant defence (Supervised by Dr Isabelle Carre)
• Quantitative study of age-related changes in the neuron-glia interaction (Supervised by Dr Yuriy Pankratov)
• Comparative and functional genomics of the bacterial degradation of the climate-cooling gas dimethylsulfide (DMS) (Supervised by Dr Hendrik Schaefer)
• Role of endosulfines in budding yeast meiosis (Supervised by Dr Dr Prakash Arumugam)
• Compound screening and Selectivity in a Hormone Receptor Complex (Supervised by Prof. Richard Napier and Prof. Vilmos Fulop)

• Structural enzymology of Prolyl endopeptidase-like protein (PREPL) Prolyl endopeptidase-like protein (PREPL) (Supervised by Prof. Vilmos Fulop)

• Structural enzymology of acetolactate decarboxylase (Supervised by Prof. Vilmos Fulop and Prof. Martin Wills)

• Investigating the interactions between microbial hormones and transcriptional repressors (Supervised by Dr Christophe Corre and Prof. Vilmos Fulop)

• What are the bases of phenotypic plasticity in asexual organisms? (Supervised by Dr Jose Gutierrez-Marcos and Prof. Alan Tunnacliffe)
• Biophysical and kinetic analysis of clathrin cage assembly (Supervised by Dr Corinne Smith and Dr Tim Dafforn)
• Deciphering the gene regulatory network around ANAC083, a key plant stress tolerance gene (Supervised by Dr Katherine Denby)
• Cell sorting to refine gene networks controlling plant stress responses (Supervised by Dr Miriam Gifford and Prof. Vicky Buchanan-Wollaston)

• Characterising intermolecular interactions that underpin eukaryotic protein synthesis (Supervised by Prof. John McCarthy)

• Translational control in the mammalian gene expression pathway (Supervised by Prof. John McCarthy)

• Regulation of eukaryotic protein synthesis by multifunctional proteins (Supervised by Prof. John McCarthy)

• Mechanisms underpinning noise generation in eukaryotic gene expression (Supervised by Prof. John McCarthy)

• Managing potentially damaging polyphosphates in the eukaryotic cell (Supervised by Prof. John McCarthy)

• Central carbon pathways of Streptomyces: identification, characterisation and metabolic engineering (Supervised by Prof. David Hodgson and Prof. Elizabeth Wellington)
• Analysis of sulfur metabolism in Streptomyces coelicolorA3(2) (Supervised by Prof. David Hodgson and Prof. Vilmos Fulop)
• Connexin 26 and the CO2-dependent control of cerebrovascular blood flow (Supervised by Prof. Nick Dale and Prof. Georgy Koentges)

• ER stress-induced programmed cell death as transducer of environmental stress tolerance in plants and as supporter of mutualistic symbioses (Supervised by Dr Patrick Schäfer)
  

• Molecular strategies of the mutualistic fungus Piriformospora indica to suppress root innate immunity in a broad spectrum of plants (Supervised by Dr Patrick Schäfer)

• The role of alternative splicing in plant disease resistance (Supervised by Dr Katherine Denby)
• Role of chromatin remodelling in host- microbe interactions (Supervised by Dr. Vardis Ntoukakis)
• Molecular mechanisms of spindle checkpoint silencing (Supervised by Prof. Jonathan Millar and Dr. Prakash Arumugam)

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Imaging

• The effect of glucose and TGF-β on cell-cell interactions in the proximal tubule (Supervised by Dr Paul Squires)
• Role of endosulfines in budding yeast meiosis (Supervised by Dr Dr Prakash Arumugam)
• Quantitative imaging of regulatory proteins in the eukaryotic gene expression pathway (Supervised by Professor John McCarthy)
• Characterising intermolecular interactions that underpin eukaryotic protein synthesis (Supervised by Prof. John McCarthy)

• Connexin 26 and the CO2-dependent control of cerebrovascular blood flow (Supervised by Prof. Nick Dale and Prof. Georgy Koentges)

• Molecular mechanisms of spindle checkpoint silencing (Supervised by Prof. Jonathan Millar and Dr. Prakash Arumugam)

• Mass spectrometry-based imaging of biological molecules in tissue samples (Supervised by Prof. Jim Scrivens)

Health, Wellbeing and other world-class projects

• The epigenomic profile of human glioblastoma multiforme (Supervised by Dr Jose Gutierrez-Marcos and Dr. Munchi Choksey)

• Molecular mechanisms of spindle checkpoint silencing (Supervised by Prof. Jonathan Millar and Dr. Prakash Arumugam)

Bacterial cell wall biosynthesis and drug discovery

• PhD projects related to the search for new antibiotics which will beat resistance in deadly “superbugs”