BBSRC SWBio DTP PhD studentship 2024 Entry - The evolutionary and mechanistic basis of virus host range

The BBSRC-funded SWBio DTP involves a partnership of world-renown universities, research institutes and industry, based mainly across the South West and Wales.

This partnership has established international, national and regional scientific networks, and widely recognised research excellence and facilities.

We aim to provide students with outstanding interdisciplinary research training within the following themes, underpinned by transformative technologies:

• Advancing the frontiers of biosciences discovery
• Biosciences for sustainable agriculture and food
• Biosciences for an integrated understanding of health

These are growth areas of the biosciences and for which there will be considerable future demand.

The award:

This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the South West Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (SWBio DTP). 

Programme Overview

You will be recruited to a broad, interdisciplinary project, supported by a multidisciplinary supervisory team, with many cross-institutional projects available. There are also opportunities to:

• apply your research in an industrial setting (DTP CASE studentships).

• undertake research jointly with our core and associate partners (Standard DTP studentships with an associate partner).

• work with other national/international researchers.

• undertake fieldwork.

Our structured training programme will ensure you are well equipped as a bioscience researcher, supporting careers into academia, industry and beyond. 

First year

We provide a broad awareness of the fundamental research approaches in life sciences and how they could be applied to real-life situations through:

• two rotation projects - both allied with but in different disciplinary areas related to the PhD project.

• three taught units - training in Statistics, Bioinformatics, coding, experimental design, innovation and understanding the impact of your research.

Of note: You will need to successfully complete the first year to progress into your second year of studies. Also, if you are unable to continue your PhD, an MRes exit route is available upon successful completion of the first year. Further Information

Second to fourth years

The remaining years will be more like a conventional PhD, where you will focus on your PhD project.

• Of note: The PhD thesis must be submitted within 4 years (full-time equivalent) of starting the programme

Placements

To help broaden your career horizons, you will undertake

• a 3-month placement of your choice, outside of an academic research environment - examples include working within policy, science communication, industry and scientific publishing.

• or a 3-18 month industry placement with your CASE partner – CASE studentships only

These are to provide you with highly desirable skills, experience and knowledge that can be applied to many career sectors.

About our PIPS and CASE placement schemes >>

Cohort activities

You will have the opportunity to join many partnership cohort activities, such as student conferences, workshops and outreach events. Here you will meet students across the partnership, giving you access to a multidisciplinary and supportive student network.

About our cohort activities >>

Project Description

Given the rise in bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, it is essential to a develop alternative strategies to deal with antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The use of phage (viruses of bacteria) to control bacterial infections offers a promising avenue (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002119). However, the host range of a phage (which hosts it can infect) can limit its practical use to control infections. There is much to learn about what determines the ability of a phage to infect some groups of hosts but not others, or how phage will evolve in different hosts.  

Background  

There has been a resurgence in the use of phage to treat bacterial infections due to the rise of antimicrobial resistance. To be effective phage need to have a suitable host range to infect the bacterial strains or species it is targeting and be efficient at replicating in and killing its bacterial host. Host range in phage is highly variable and there is variation in susceptibility across bacterial strains and species.   Our previous work has developed a system of 64 strains of Staphylococcus across 17 species of bacteria, and a broad host range phage called ISP. ISP can infect almost all of the host strains tested and the host phylogeny is an important determinant ISP to infect and replicate across these bacterial hosts (Walsh et al. 2023, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1011433). This suggests host relatedness can be a useful tool in predicting bacterial susceptibility to phage. ISP is currently being used for the treatment of antibiotic resistant Staphylococcus aureus in clinical trials. 

This project will ask fundamental questions about virus host range using a bacteria-virus system to study the why hosts vary in their susceptibility and the consequences of virus evolution on host range. We will first test how variation in i) the host receptor used by the phage to enter cells and ii) the intracellular defense systems, predict whether the virus can infect a given host. This will allow us to predict optimal characteristics for a broad host range phage with high killing potential. We will use this information, together with experimental evolution of the phage, to optimise its hosts range.    

This model offers a unique opportunity to use experimental evolution to ask fundamental questions about virus host shifts with direct relevance for the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance.

The closing date for applications is midnight on Monday, 4 December 2023. Interviews will be held between 1st and 15th February 2024.

For full information including academic criteria, eligibility, residence criteria and entry requirements and to apply please follow this link - Award details | Funding and scholarships for students | University of Exeter