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/

NameProject title
Danielle Lambert

Investigating the mechanisms of non-classical gastrin signalling in tumour development (NPIF)
Ryan Hubball

Designing a chemical 'toolbox' for the efficient inhibition of metalloenzymes (NPIF)
Dorothy HawkinsDorothy Hawkins

Structural characterisation of a bacteriophage DNA packaging motor using Cryo-Electron Microscopy (NPIF)
Claire Brown

Influence of microbial community on nitrogen use efficiency in agriculture (NPIF)
Anzar Asad

GPCR drug discovery using the zebrafish model (NPIF)
Evelyn SmithEvelyn Smith

Analysis of neuronal kinesin-1 activation dynamics in response to cargo binding
Kate Loveday

The role of chikungunya virus nsP1 protein in virus replication
Cheuk Yan (Joshua) Lee

Probing the epitranscriptome with nanopore sequencing (iCASE)
Carmen Apostol

Structural investigation of hnRNP proteins using Cryo-EM
Hannah Fisher

The Structure and Function of Clostridia Spores
James Pitman

From metabolic markers to mechanism of growth suppression: understanding the molecular physiology of sprouting in potato (i-CASE)
Rhys Woodfin

Plant metabolism and remediation of the explosive and pollutant TNT
Catriona Walker

The roles of phytohormones in carpic dominance and floral arrest
Laura Cowell

Transcriptional regulation by FGF in the switch from pluripotency to cell lineage commitment
Orlagh Anderson

Engineering bacterial therapeutics with enhanced metabolic properties (i-CASE)
Harry Pink

Gene editing and molecular breeding for fungal disease resistance in lettuce (i-CASE)
Theo Issitt

Probing cellular responses to environmental and metabolic stress
Reuben Ouanounou

Biochemical, biophysical and structural characterisation of Fanconi anaemia nuclease 1. A structure-specific nuclease involved in interstrand crosslink repair.
Emily Harrison

Investigating how reducing stomatal density in the C4 crop Maize influences drought tolerance and photosynthesis (iCASE)
Ruth Thomas

SSA - Genetic and Drug Screening in DNA Repair Deficient Zebrafish for Novel Targets in the Treatment of Neurological Disease and Cancer
Connor Hayward

Defining picornaviral replication complexes by molecular and state-of-the-art imaging- Novel strategies for disease control
Frederick Weaver

Determining the role of molecular co-chaperones in virus infection: A novel antiviral approach
Alina Capatina

Regulation of cellular metabolism and intercellular communication by sodium signalling
Owen Laing

Molecular mechanisms underlying replicative stress and genome damage in pluripotent stem cells (i-CASE)
Peter Daniels

Characterisation of the Rex1 ribonuclease in yeast and human cells
Federica Pastorelli

1/ Characterization of cyclic electron flow around photosystem I in photosynthesis 2/ Super-resolution video rate imaging of photosynthetic membrane dynamics in plants and algae
Megan Lovatt

SSA Cryo-electron Tomography of Activated Mammalian Synapses
Conor Scott

Mining the secretome of the lignocellulose degrading fungus Parascedosporium putredinis NO1 (i-CASE)
Larra Trinidad

Epithelial morphogenesis: coordinating planar polarity and tissue mechanics
Joseph Nabarro

Probing the dynamics, orientation and conformation of lipopolysaccharide in bacterial membranes through bio-orthogonal chemistry and single-molecule biophysics
Jessica Davis

Structural characterization of the enterococcal polysaccharide antigen and analysis of its contribution to cell growth, division and antibiotic resistance
Cara Wheeldon

The role of root exudates in density-dependent growth responses in plants
Quentin Levicky 2019 starter headshotQuentin Levicky

Development of Debaryomyces hansenii as a robust host for production of high value fatty acid-based biochemicals.
Katie Gelder

Investigating the role of phase separation in enhancer-dependent gene regulation
Kyle Le Huray

Investigation into the determinants of protein-lipid interactions using molecular dynamics simulations, machine learning and mass spectrometry
Alexandra Holmes

Investigating the Structure and Function of Membrane-Integral Pyrophosphatases
Robert Brench

Speeding towards efficient stomata - the molecular mechanisms that underpin increased stomatal efficiency
Hannah Jones

Seasonality control of barley flowering: from the lab to the field (i-CASE)
Kathryn Billane

The evolution of multidrug resistant bacterial pathogens
Jessica Edge

MicroRNA evolution in placental mammals: Unravelling conservation and divergence in their regulatory mechanisms in early pregnancy in different placental mammals
Kane Yoon

Epigenetics, embryogenesis and plasticity in insects
Thomas Hamer

Molecular localisation of Staphylococus aureus surface proteins
Harry Schofield

Structural and mechanistic insights into antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus
Jessica Mcneill

Plasticity of clathrin-mediated endocytosis in development
Rosalind Latham

Nuclease-resistant DNA nanostructures for high precision plant genome engineering
Joanna Greenman

SSA Mechanisms and functional consequences of platelet-macrophage cross-talk in type 2 immunity
Emily Byrd

Probing the Conformational Dynamics of α-Synuclein by Structural Mass Spectrometry
Charlotte Stevenson

Programming the subcellular localization of enzyme inhibitors
James Barrett

Super resolution imaging of the algal pyrenoid
Claire Smithson

Epigenetic mechanisms underlying responses to environmental stress