Postgraduate research project

The role of metabolic adaptation in stress tolerance, tumorigenesis, and fungal drug resistance

Funding
Fully funded (UK only)
Type of degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Entry requirements
2:1 honours degree View full entry requirements
Faculty graduate school
Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences
Closing date

About the project

This project will dramatically impact the fields of drug resistant microbial pathogens, chemo-resistant tumours, and synthetic food engineering.

We study novel mechanisms of rapid cellular adaptation to stress. We are primarily interested in how membrane less organelles coordinate real-time adaptability of cellular functionality, particularly metabolic responses.

Some cells are not well equipped to deal with stress. These include neurons and aging cells in which we study neurodegenerative brain diseases. Other cells cause disease by being 'too adaptive' to stress. These include pathogens and cancer cells that acquire drug resistance. Chemoresistance is one of the greatest health and food production challenges of our time. This project will focus on finding novel mechanisms that can be targeted for therapeutic development.

Finally, metabolic stress response pathways can be manipulated for synthetic food production, so some of our work focuses on novel methods of metabolic engineering.

You will develop an independent, novel and innovative research program with colleagues and use the following technical skills:  

  • gene editing
  • high-end live cell imaging and super-resolution approaches
  • metabolomics
  • proteomics
  • bioinformatics