MVLS/EPSRC PhD fully funded positions are available within the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow. Our aim is to deliver high quality, collaborative research and training for our PhD students within the Biosciences. The West of Scotland is a key region in the UK for academic excellence, industrial support and investment.
Areas of research include (but are not restricted to) mathematical biology, bioenergy, synthetic biology, nanobiology and research into healthcare devices. A list of available projects, abstracts and supervisors can be found HERE. We strongly recommend that students examine the list of projects available, and contact potential supervisors to discuss the projects before applying.
Visit programme website for more information: https://www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvls/graduateschool/mvlsepsrcstudentships/
Supervisors:
Dr Tom Agtmael
Prof Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez
PhD Project Summary:
The air blood barrier in the lung, plays a critical role in protecting the human body from pollutants and infection, and is formed by epithelial cells that are separated by a basement membrane from vascular endothelial cells. Defects in the air blood barrier are associated with major respiratory diseases, including virus infection, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. There is a real need for treatments for improving air blood barrier permeability but their development is hindered by our limited knowledge of air blood barrier biology, and the absence of a simple cell culture model that is physiologically relevant and enables drug screening.
This cross-disciplinary project will employ biomaterials combined lung epithelial cells to engineer a novel in vitro air blood barrier model. This model will then be employed to investigate mechanisms by which basement membrane composition and signaling influences barrier formation. This will significantly increase our fundamental understanding of mechanisms underlying lung barrier function in health and disease. Importantly as our models are based on using epithelial cells only, this paves the way for compound screening to identify novel treatments for these devastating diseases.
This project sits at the interface of bio-engineering, cell biology and matrix biology and training will be provided in cutting edge technologies including material science, bio-engineering, molecular cell biology, imaging (e.g fluorescent, atomic force and electron microscopy) and molecular approaches in well-funded laboratories.
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