Cellular-Redox Driven Fabrication of Biomimetic Polymers

Supervisory Team: Dr Frankie J Rawson (School of Pharmacy), Prof Cameron Alexander (School of Pharmacy) Dr Phil Hill (School of Biosciences)

Applications are invited for this 4-year PhD project which is part of a University-funded Doctoral Training Programme (DTP) in Synthetic Biology and associated with Nottingham’s new BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre. The student will benefit from a diverse range of training opportunities, including specialist workshops, lectures and seminars, as well as participation in Nottingham’s yearly BBSRC DTP Spring School event.

Magennis, EP et al (Nature Materials 2014)1 recently reported that bacterial redox systems have been exploited to induce a copper-mediated radical polymerization of synthetic monomers at cell surfaces. The aim of this PhD will be to develop a new synthetic biology approach for the synthesis of biomimetic polymers, by genetic engineering of cells with iron reducing proteins to facilitate redox driven cell surface synthesis of polymers via iron mediated polymerisation.

The project is available from 1st October 2016 and is open to UK and EU students with a 2(i) degree in chemistry, pharmacy, biochemistry, or a related discipline. The work will be based at the School of Pharmacy and School of Biosciences in Nottingham and may involve travel to collaborators (Prof Mitsuo Sawamoto and Associate Prof Makoto Ouchi) from Kyoto University, Faculty of Engineering Polymer Chemistry, Japan.

The supervision team for this project is multi-disciplinary, enabling training in a wide-range of subjects and techniques spanning chemistry and biology.

Informal enquiries to Dr Frankie Rawson, ([Email Address Removed]).