PhD Projects

Our students are studying diverse areas of mechanistic biology in the following BBSRC strategic themes:

Advancing the frontiers of bioscience discovery:

1) Understanding the rules of life (formerly World Class Underpinning Bioscience)

2) Transformative technologies (formerly Exploiting New Ways of Working)

Tackling strategic challenges:

3) Bioscience for sustainable agriculture and food (formerly Agriculture and Food Security)

4) Bioscience for renewable resources and clean growth (formerly Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy)

These are the new BBSRC priority areas, taken from strategic document, “Forward look for UK Bioscience”, available on the BBSRC website:

https://bbsrc.ukri.org/documents/forward-look-for-uk-bioscience-pdf/

	Name	Project title
	Malika Zahedi University of Leeds 2022	Smooth muscle myosin filament assembly and disassembly in smooth muscle cells: fact or fiction?
	Gina Vong University of York 2022	The Perfect Sunrise: The effect of morning light on disease resistance in greenhouse crops
	Taya Bosson University of Leeds 2022	Perineuronal nets as a barrier to α-synuclein neuronal internalisation
	Sude Uyulgan University of Sheffield 2022	In vitro generation of limb-like cells
	Sophie Groenhof University of Sheffield 2022	A novel opportunity to combat the global Phosphorus crisis: investigating structure function relationships of an atypical phosphatase in soil bacteria
	Sophie Fountain University of Sheffield 2022	Understanding the mechanobiology of DNA-protein interactions at the single-molecule level
	Rob Hunton University of Sheffield 2022	Understanding the role of intracellular trafficking in in vivo cell polarisation during tissue patterning using state-of-the-art imaging and gene manipulation tools
	Miguel Aracena Velazquez University of York 2022	Investigating the structural and mechanistic basis for translation initiation in Enterovirus Type I IRESs
	Mawgan Trebell University of Sheffield 2022	How does S. pneumoniae acquire extracellular DNA from its natural environment to drive antibiotic resistance?
	Matthew Craske University of York 2022	Uncovering the evolutionary impact of Gene Transfer Agents (GTAs) on Rhodobacter capsulatus
	Maria Pattichis University of York 2022	Elucidating mechanisms regulating pathogen virulence and plant defence in the Botrytis cinerea-Arabidopsis thaliana interaction
	Lorraine Matandirotya University of Leeds 2022	Elucidating the role of host cell non coding RNAs in viral replication
	Katie Shaw University of Sheffield 2022	Silicon enhances stomatal function and protects crop yields
	Karla Cardenas Gomez University of York 2022	Going back in time to predict the evolution of a future plant pathogen
	Jordan Dialpuri University of York 2022	Automated model building of protein-nucleotide complexes using X-ray data and Alphafold models
	Joe Parr University of York 2022	Delineating insulin-action pathways
	Jake Kerrison University of York 2022	Engineering proteins for applications in biosensors
	Jack Connor University of Leeds 2022	Navigating Through Sequence Space to Understand Alpha-Synuclein Aggregation
	Harry Tran University of Leeds 2022	Probing a novel allosteric binding site in Mycobacterium DNA gyrase to tackle TB and antimicrobial resistance
	Gillian Caalim University of York 2022	Activation of the transcription factor HIF-1 by HMGN1 in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia
	Eve Anderson University of Sheffield 2022	Cell engineering and analytical strategies for control of recombinant biopharmaceutical aggregate levels in cell culture media
	Eshita Sengupta University of Leeds 2022	Investigating novel mechanical receptors in the sensory nervous system
	Erin Tait University of Leeds 2022	Bioinspired multivalent glycan structures to decipher pathogen immune evasion
	Emily Booth University of Sheffield 2022	Engineering a membrane-adapted viral helicase nanopore
	Ella Reid University of York 2022	Electrochemical High-Throughput Discovery of Novel Lytic Polysaccharide Monooxygenase Enzymes (i-CASE)
	Elisa Nightingale University of York 2022	Covalent inhibition of deubiquitiases of Leishmania mexicana
	Eilidh Ward University of Leeds 2022	Molecular function and evolution of long non-coding RNA derived micro-peptides in normal neuronal differentiation
	Dylan Lewis University of Sheffield 2022	Studying the transient nature of protein binding within the electron transport chain
	Daniel Narino Rojas University of York 2022	Developing phage therapy to reduce plant pathogen virulence in Ralstonia solanacearum
	Daisy Theobald University of Leeds 2022	Revealing the role of cellular non-coding RNAs in human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in oral keratinocytes
	Chloe Atkins University of Leeds 2022	Using Combinatorial Selection Methods to Identify Chemical Modifications of Protein Function
	Chandra Ramalingam University of Sheffield 2022	Community metaproteomics to establish functional responses within the oral microbiome
	Brianna Woodbury University of York 2022	Cryo-EM analysis of DNA packaging by the FtsK-HerA ATPases of dsDNA viruses
	Ashleigh Whelan University of Sheffield 2022	How do we make and process the RNA involved in DNA repair?
	Anyah Settle University of Sheffield 2022	Explore & develop bioanalytical methodologies to monitor the physical stability of co-formulated drug product
	Anamika Kumari University of Sheffield 2022	Mechanistic study of organellar genome replication in malarial parasite
	Alex Ascham University of York 2022	Engineering ATP-Grasp Enzymes for the Preparation of Pharmaceutical Amides
	Tom Cozens University of Sheffield	Form and function: adapting dendritic morphology and synaptic location to optimise neural activity
	Avril Strachan University of York 2021	Enhancing motor protein performance for nanopore DNA sequencing via directed and Darwinian evolutionary approaches (i-CASE)
	Maud De Kinderen University of York 2021	Exploiting an Amaranth MAGIC population for improvement of leafy vegetable traits (i-CASE)
	Gabriele Gelezauskaite University of Sheffield 2021	Investigating the cell-type-specific effects of aneuploidy using human pluripotent stem cells as a model (iCASE)
	Nikita Soni University of Sheffield 2021	Exploring a novel biological role of the master energy homeostasis regulator PGC-1alpha as a potential modifier of mitochondrial function and senescence (i-CASE)
	Sebastian Ross University of Sheffield 2021	Next generation sustainable dsRNA biopesticides (i-CASE)
	Isobel Jackson Hirst University of Leeds 2021	Developing new approaches and improved technologies for the study of membrane protein structure and mechanism (i-CASE)
	Jacob Webb University of Leeds 2021	Revealing the targets and mode of action of plant fungicides using chemical proteomic tools (i-CASE)
	Andrew Cowan University of Leeds 2021	Targeting enzymes for plastic degradation
	Matthew Marsden University of Leeds 2021	Understanding the molecular basis of gravitropism and growth angle control
	Gemma Banister University of York 2021	Molecular assembly of the non-canonical inflammasome
	Isabelle Boon University of Leeds 2021	Unravelling the rules of outer membrane protein folding: Opportunities for the design of new antibacterial strategies
	Helena Roy Boada University of Leeds 2021	Investigating how dysregulation of ncRNA networks enhance virus replication