PhD studentship available within the C3Bio Doctoral Training Initiative. Development of a low-cost microfluidic transducer for electric noise diagnostics of bacterial infections in low resource settings

Project team: Dr Paulo Rocha, Dr Nuno Reis & Dr Brian Jones

Project enquiries: Dr Paulo Rocha ([Email Address Removed])

PROJECT:
Bacterial infections with ‘super-bugs’ such as Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) or Septicaemia affect millions of people worldwide. In case of sepsis, morbidity correlates with the inability to provide early diagnosis, particularly in the first 36 hours of infection. Current procedures for bacterial identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) are time consuming (36-72 hours) or, in the case of lateral flow strips, unable to inform about antibiotic resistance. Critically, developing countries lack access to sophisticated and near-the-patient microbiological laboratories, which means patients are not properly treated or are given unnecessary antibiotics, which are key factors in the increased incidence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

This project will pioneer electric noise detection of bacteria enabling simple, rapid label-free identification of pathogens in human samples (blood or urine) commensurate with constraints of low-resource settings. The work will build from the extensive expertise within the supervisory team in electric noise detection, rapid-microfluidic diagnostics and medical microbiology, and recent work describing the electrical activity of cells and their response to external stimulus to deliver new electronic-tools for pathogen identification and AST.

CANDIDATE:
Applicants should hold, or expect to receive, an undergraduate Masters first class degree or MSc distinction (or non-UK equivalent). English language entry requirements must be met at the time of application to be considered for funding, see http://www.bath.ac.uk/study/pg/apply/english-language/index.html


APPLICATION:
Formal applications should be made via the University of Bath’s online application form for a PhD in Electronic & Electrical Engineering. Please ensure that you state the full project title and lead supervisor name on the application form:

https://samis.bath.ac.uk/urd/sits.urd/run/siw_ipp_lgn.login?process=siw_ipp_app&code1=RDUEE-FP01&code2=0014


Expected start date: 28 September 2020