Designing biofilm models for drug discovery in cystic fibrosis at University of Nottingham on FindAPhD.com

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Prof Miguel Camara No more applications being accepted Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham

About the Project

This studentship is part of a Strategic Research Centre funded by the UK Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Trust and the USA CF Foundation to design a preclinical framework for the developmet of antimicrobial therapeutics in cystic fibrosis. This PhD project will be integrated within a much broader research plan to develop this pipeline in collaboration with twelve other research groups from the UK and the USA. The PhD project aims to design polymicrobial biofilm models which resemble the CF lung environment. Biofilms will be characterised using techniques such as confocal microscopy of fluorescently tagged microbial clinical isolates, exopolysaccharide and e-DNA staining and dead/live staining, to establish the impact of treatment on cell viability and biofilm architecture. A range of measurements will also be used to determine growth, antimicrobial efficacy, relative species abundance (including optical density, colony forming units, metabolic activity [ATP production, bioluminescence etc]) and bacterial virulence factor production, thus allowing testing of a range of therapeutic types, including anti-virulence agents such as quorum sensing inhibitors developed at Nottingham. This project will be carried out in close collaboration with the laboratory of Dr Jo Fothergill at Liverpool University and the student will have the opportunity to interact with researchers from the other institutions involved in this consortium.

The PhD student will also be part of the National Biofilms Innovation Centre (www.biofilms.ac.uk) where Prof Camara is Co-Director and hence will have access to training and networking opportunities offered by the Centre.

The studentship will start on the 1^st April 2022 and is eligible for UK Nationals only.

To apply for this studentship please send a copy of your CV with the name and contact details of 2 referees and a cover letter, indicating the reasons why you would like to carry out this PhD project, to Mark Sutton [Email Address Removed] by the end of Tuesday 30^th November

References

Soukarieh, F., Mashabi, A., Richardson, W., Vico Oton, E., Romero, M., Robertson, S., Grossman, S., Sou, T., Liu, R., Halliday, N., Kukavica-Ibrulj, I., Levesque, R., Bergström, C., Kellam, B., Emsley, J., Heeb, S., Williams, P., Stocks, M. and Cámara, M. (2021). Design and evaluation of new quinazolin-4(3H)-one derived PqsR antagonists as quorum sensing quenchers in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. ACS Infectious Diseases DOI 10.1021/acsinfecdis.1c00175
Soukarieh, F., Liu, R., Romero, M., Roberston, SN., Richardson, W., Lucanto, S., Vico Oton. EW., Qudus, NR., Mashabi, A., Grossman, S., Ali, S., Sou, T., Kukavica-Ibrulj, I., Levesque, RC, Bergström, CAS., Halliday, N,, Mistry, SN., Emsley, J., Heeb, S., Williams, P., Cámara, M. 1,2* and Stocks, MJ.* (2020) Hit Identification of New Potent PqsR Antagonists as Inhibitors of Quorum Sensing in Planktonic and Biofilm Grown Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Frontiers in Chemistry, DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2020.00204
Soukarieh, F., Vico Oton, E., Dubern, JF., Gomes, J., Halliday, N., de Pilar Crespo, M., Ramirez-Prada, J., Insuasty, B., Abonia, R., Quiroga, J., Heeb, S., Williams, P., Stocks, MJ., Cámara, M. (2018) In silico and in vitro-guided identification of inhibitors of alkylquinolone-dependent quorum sensing in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Molecules DOI 10.3390/molecules23020257.