Please see below PIPS opportunity with MetalloBio Ltd in Sheffield. There is no set deadline for the placement.
A BBSRC-PIPS PhD student placement is available at MetalloBio, which will focus on customer discovery work aimed at furthering our understanding as to whether or not there is a market need for new wound-care products functionalised with our antimicrobial compounds.
About MetalloBio Limited
MetalloBio Limited is an early-stage antimicrobials development company. Spun-out from The University of Sheffield in March 2021, the company was led by its co-founder and first CEO, Dr Kirsty Smitten, until her tragic death in October 2023 from chronic untreatable lung infections following treatment for a rare and aggressive cancer, cardiac angiosarcoma. Kirsty and co-founder, Professor Jim Thomas, worked together to design and create two novel classes of inorganic compounds that have profound antibacterial activity. The two series of compounds employ novel chemical architectural elements which are utterly distinct from any drugs in established antibiotics families. Series 1 compounds, exemplified by the lead drug candidate KLS-116 and over 10 analogues, are in development as systemic antibiotics. Series 2 compounds, represented by KLS-219 and over 20 analogues made to date, are chemically distinct and have a different mode of action. The latter compounds are reserved for inclusion into antimicrobial coatings with a variety of applications across the medical device and products sectors, including potentially, wound-care products.
About AMR (which lies at the heart of “untreatable infections”)
Through AMR (antimicrobial resistance), pathogenic microorganisms such as clinical bacterial strains are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotic treatment, meaning that otherwise manageable and treatable infections are becoming less easy, or impossible, to treat. The resistance mechanisms which enable bacteria to elude antibiotics are not only passed down from mother to daughter cells (vertical transfer), they are also spread between different bacterial species found adjacent to each other in infection sites (horizontal transfer). No fundamentally new type of antibiotic drug class has emerged from R&D in over 40 years. In the meantime, overuse of antibiotics; inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics – for example, when the infection in question is caused by a virus not a bacterium (antibiotics are only effective against bacteria); and a massive reduction in R&D into new antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents, have all contributed to the environment we now find ourselves in. Without effective antibiotics, advances in major surgery, treatment of auto-immune diseases, and cancer (to name but a few areas of modern medicine affected) are at risk of being completely negated. Putting this into context, in the time it has taken you to read this far, eleven people have died of an untreatable bacterial infection.
Proposed Placement
A BBSRC-PIPS PhD student placement is available at MetalloBio, which will focus on customer discovery work aimed at furthering our understanding as to whether or not there is a market need for new wound-care products functionalised with our antimicrobial compounds. The activities being undertaken will include; value proposition (VP) identification and refinement, VP testing in a ‘real-world’ setting through primary research (e.g. interviews with; potential customers, users, patient groups and clinicians etc.) and competitor analysis. Full training will be provided.
This 12 week placement can be undertaken full-time, or part-time in order to fit around your PhD commitments (e.g. ongoing lab work). Ideally you will spend at least half of your time with the MetalloBio team at our offices and labs in Sheffield, as there is also the opportunity to get involved with and learn about other company activities.
Application
There is no set deadline for the placement.
For more information about the application process, contact Dr Richard Senior, Chief Operating Officer richard.senior@metallobio.com.