molecular virology PhD Projects, Programs & Scholarships

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

 The Tuplin laboratory utilises a range of cutting-edge approaches to investigate how arboviruses - specificaly Chikungunya, Dengue and Zika viruses - control replication and translation of their genomes through interactions between RNA structures, host cell proteins and non-coding RNA, and the potential of such RNA elements/interactions as novel therapeutic targets.

Precision Medicine DTP: Inhibition of Zika Virus by Interferon A14 and derivatives

University of Edinburgh
College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine

Dr R Sloan, Prof K Ball

Application Deadline: 1 June 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be successful. Unsuccessful projects may still go ahead as self-funded opportunities.

Type I interferons can be produced by most cells in the body upon virus infection and are central to innate immune control and subsequent elimination of virus infection.

Mapping the three dimensional structure of RNA

University of Warwick
Department of Chemistry

Prof M Wills

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project has funding attached, subject to eligibility criteria. Applications for the project are welcome from all suitably qualified candidates, but its funding may be restricted to a limited set of nationalities. You should check the project and department details for more information.

We aim to combine organic synthetic chemistry, molecular biology, virology and computational biology tools to elucidate the 3D structure determinants behind RNA viruses such as dengue virus and coronaviruses.

Accelerating molecular phylogenetic inference using high performance computing.

University of Reading
School of Biological Sciences

Dr A Meade

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

Molecular phylogenetic inference, constructing evolutionary histories from molecular data, is an activity universal to all biological disciplines.

Mathematical Virology: A New Mathematical Approach to Viral Evolution Grounded in Experiment

University of Leeds
Faculty of Biological Sciences

Research Group: Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology

Prof P G Stockley

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be successful. Unsuccessful projects may still go ahead as self-funded opportunities.

Mathematical modelling of natural phenomena has the potential to be predictive but requires direct verification by experiment. Such models can then be very powerful indicators of our understanding and they permit in silico simulations of situations that are difficult to test experimentally.

Nucleic Acid Sensing During Virus Infection – Innate Immunity

University of Oxford
Radcliffe Department of Medicine

Dr J Rehwinkel

Application Deadline: 24 July 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

Virus infection is a constant threat to the cells of all living organisms. To counter this threat, cellular receptors detect virus presence and activate potent antiviral immune responses.

Nucleic Acid Sensing During Virus Infection – Innate Immunity

University of Oxford
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine

Dr J Rehwinkel

Application Deadline: 24 July 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

Virus infection is a constant threat to the cells of all living organisms. To counter this threat, cellular receptors detect virus presence and activate potent antiviral immune responses.

Synthetic Virology: Development of gene delivery vectors/synthetic vaccines

University of Leeds
Faculty of Biological Sciences

Research Group: Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology

Prof P G Stockley

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be successful. Unsuccessful projects may still go ahead as self-funded opportunities.

There is worldwide interest in exploiting our modern understanding of genomics to target gene expression therapeutically via a variety of mechanisms, such as transgene insertion and CRISPR-Cas gene editing.

Regulation of host cell DNA damage response pathways by adenovirus

University of Birmingham
Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences

Dr A S Turnell, Dr C McCabe

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

Human adenoviruses are small non-enveloped viruses with a linear, double-stranded DNA genome. Adenovirus has long served as a faithful model for dissecting the molecular basis of key cellular signalling pathways that regulate fundamental biological processes such as cell growth, cell differentiation and cell death.

Novel microbial source tracking markers for identification of fecal contaminations in inflow rivers of Taihu Lake

University of Liverpool
Department of Biological Sciences

Dr S Raju, Prof A J McCarthy

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project has funding attached, subject to eligibility criteria. Applications for the project are welcome from all suitably qualified candidates, but its funding may be restricted to a limited set of nationalities. You should check the project and department details for more information.

This opportunity is open until position has been filled. The PhD studentship is available for three years subject to satisfactory progress by the student.

Bioinformatics for Personalized and Precision Neoantigen Therapeutics in Cancer

University of Edinburgh
Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine

Prof T Hupp, Dr JA Alfaro

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project has funding attached, subject to eligibility criteria. Applications for the project are welcome from all suitably qualified candidates, but its funding may be restricted to a limited set of nationalities. You should check the project and department details for more information.

Despite the success of immune checkpoint inhibitors in the clinic, most cancer patients do not respond, and even among responders therapeutic resistance is a problem.

Computational prospecting of bacteriophage genomes and prophages for biotechnologically and pharmaceutically relevant enzymes

Queen’s University Belfast
School of Pharmacy

Dr T Skvortsov

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be successful. Unsuccessful projects may still go ahead as self-funded opportunities.

The number of bacteriophage genomes available in public databases keeps growing, but the problem of accurate prediction of functions of bacteriophage genes remains far from being solved.

A lab on a chip: using nano-plasmonics tongues for building miniaturized ecosystem sensors (SUPER DTP)

University of St Andrews
School of Biology

Research Group: Scottish Oceans Institute

Dr L Boehme

Application Deadline: 1 June 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be successful. Unsuccessful projects may still go ahead as self-funded opportunities.

Sustainability and human wellbeing depend on resources from marine and freshwater systems, and to monitor how they are changing, a range of observations are needed.

Imaging the local accumulation and clearance of protein aggregates in the extracellular space of the brain in Alzheimer’s disease models.

University of St Andrews
School of Biology

Research Group: Biomedical Sciences Research Centre

Dr J Varela, Prof F Gunn-Moore

Application Deadline: 15 June 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project has funding attached, subject to eligibility criteria. Applications for the project are welcome from all suitably qualified candidates, but its funding may be restricted to a limited set of nationalities. You should check the project and department details for more information.

Small aggregates of misfolded proteins are thought to be the main cause for cellular death in a wide variety of neurodegenerative diseases.