Stress responses and their roles in microbial growth and pathogenicity

Projects for excellent students with the relevant background are available two areas. (a) The functions and roles of chaperonins in Mycobacteria, with an emphasis on developing model systems in the fish pathogen Mycobacterium marinum. This project will build on our published work on chaperonins in M. tuberculosis and M smegmatis. We have already shown that the non-essential chaperonin of M tuberculosis is essential for it to form granulomas in experimental animals, and that the chaperonins of Mycobacteria have unusual structures. In this project, we will endeavour to construct deletion mutants of different chaperone genes in the fish pathogen Mycobacterium marinum, with a view to screening these in an animal model for their effects on pathogenicity. We are also interested in the expression and structure of the chaperonins (GroEL homologues) in this organism. (b) The mechanism of detection of acid in E. coli and its importance in pathogenicity. This project will look at the EvgS sensor kinase, and endeavour to map functional domains of this protein using molecular methods to determine how it enables E. coli to respond to external acid stress. We have already selected a number of novel mutants in this protein which will help us to map functional regions and to explore the structural basis for the protein's role in acid resistance. We also wish to define the EvgS regulon in pathogenic as opposed to lab strains of E. coli. The project may expand to look at other aspects of related two component systems in E. coli. Both projects will use mainly molecular genetic methods, but we collaborate with several groups who use a range of techniques in biochemistry, biophysics, and systems biology to study the problems we are all interested in.

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Please find additional funding text below. For further funding details, please see the ‘Funding’ section.

The School of Biosciences offers a number of UK Research Council (e.g. BBSRC, NERC) PhD studentships each year. Fully funded research council studentships are normally only available to UK nationals (or EU nationals resident in the UK) but part-funded studentships may be available to EU applicants resident outside of the UK. The deadline for applications for research council studentships is in January each year.

Each year we also have a number of fully funded Darwin Trust Scholarships. These are provided by the Darwin Trust of Edinburgh and are for non-UK students wishing to undertake a PhD in the general area of Molecular Microbiology. The deadline for this scheme is also in January each year.

Please note the only funding available for our PhD is via the Scholarships mentioned. All applicants should indicate in their applications how they intend to fund their studies. Any academically suitable applicant that does not indicate how they intend to fund their studies will be considered for the Darwin and/or the Elite Scholarships if not already indicated. We can only consider applicants who have their own funding or wish to apply for their own funding or are successful in gaining a Scholarship.