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
David Kealy

How does the human papillomavirus (HPV) E5 protein control skin cell growth and differentiation during a productive life cycle?
Nicholas Hurst

Molecular basis for specific regulation of the stress sensor IRE1 in cancer cells
James Horne

Chaperone-assisted protein folding in the bacterial periplasm
Francis Hopkins

Structural Biology of RiboNucleoProtein complexes of pathogenic arena and bunyaviruses
Sophie Hesketh

Developing our structural understanding of the TRPM2 channel through electron microscopy studies
Brittany Graham

Muscle ageing and gene expression balance in Caenorhabditis elegans
Jack Bravo

Mechanism of Genomic Segment Assortment in Avian Reovirus
Peter Fisher

Predicting glycan alterations in mammalian cells
Emily Breardon

Discovery and functional analysis of Striga resistance genes in rice for targeted breeding of durable defence.
Matthew Dooley

Improving methods for the detection and monitoring of beetle pests through a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying beetle odour perception.
Lia De Faveri

Synthetic approaches to developing reagents for rapid, in-field detection of cereal rusts
Emma Wroblewski

Defining a novel assembly pathway in ssRNA viruses.    
Brendan Rogers

The Structural Biology of the Z-disc in health and disease
Grace Roberts

Investigating the role of the nsP3 macro domain in Chikungunya virus replication
Alistair Plant

Co-Repression and the Evolution of Novel Plant Structures
Ryan Kaye

The Mechanisms of Gravity-Dependent Non-Vertical Growth in Higher Plants
Alexander Coleman

Virus remodelling of the nuclear pore complex : a novel antiviral target
Lucy Barber

New approaches to combatting amyloid disease from mechanistic insights
Joseph Ward

Understanding foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) replication
Samuel Bunce

Developing Diazirines as Probes for Monitoring Dynamic Molecular Recognition Processes
Simon Fairbanks

Structural studies on luminescent probes for quadruplex DNA
Elanor Harrison

Studying the roles of epigenetics in therapeutic protein production
Nicholas Barber

Multigene engineering of secretion by mammalian cell factories
Rachel Denley-Bowers

The economics of stomatal distribution
Jessica Dunn

The Effect of Manipulating Wheat Stomatal Development
Mathew Parker

Deciphering microRNA networks using Next Generation Sequencing
Jordan Talbot

A novel role for a specific chemokine in CNS function and disease
Ben Aden Phillips

Investigating the mechanical regulation of autophagy
Thomas Wilkinson

Plant-mediated interactions between above and below ground symbiotic microbes: implications for food security 
Michael King

Investigating the role of Capicua in mediating FGF transcriptional regulation in pluripotent stem cells
Rachael Evans

Evolving microbial communities for biofuel production
Samuel Dawes

NMR screening of small molecule inhibitors targeting endonuclease activity of an ER stress sensor Ire1
Laura West

Structure-function studies of N1-Src kinase in axon guidance
Cecilia Pennica

Probing the molecular interactions mediating the segregation of a multidrug resistance plasmid
Caitlin McQueen

Turning on genes to build muscle
Adam Hughes

Membrane Migration and Fission: Structure and Interaction of Proteins Mediating Phagocytosis during Sporulation in Bacillus subtilis
Daniel Yee

Understanding cell-type specific regulation of microRNA biogenesis
Banushan Balansethupathy

Evaluating the role of protein dynamics in double-stranded RNA recognition
Thomas Hartley

Increasing the potassium use efficiency in crops
Marc Cabry

Structural analysis of dioxygenases from opium poppy: towards the production of new biocatalytic tools for morphinan production
Thomas Irving

How plants maintain a good relationship with beneficial fungi
Elizabeth Hollwey

Leeds - Generating epigenetic diversity in plants
Hannah Southam

CO-releasing molecules as novel antimicrobial agents: mechanisms of transport and resistance
Ian Bennet

Protein and DNA Dynamics in 5'-Nuclease Mechanistic Biology
Bryony Cotterell

Bacterial Cell Wall Mapping at the Nanoscale
Aidan Taylor

Understanding the resistance of pathogenic bacteria to host innate defences
Elliot Jokl

Mechanotransduction through z-disc complexes of the skeletal muscle
Grace Hoysted

Plant-mediated interactions between above-and below-ground crop pests: molecular and biochemical mechanisms
Nicole Jackson

From inhibitor to antibacterial agent: delineating the physico-chemical properties required of small molecules to enable bacterial uptake
Robert Thomas

Computational modelling of growth angle control across the higher plants