University of Leeds PhD Projects, Programs & Scholarships

Research Group: School of Biomedical Sciences

Dr J D Lippiat, Dr D Tomlinson

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.

We are developing methods to identify novel proteins, Affimers, that recognise extracellular domains of ion channels. These have applications in various aspects of biology, from tools to visualise the location and distribution of ion channels in native tissue, to novel modulators of ion channel function.

Development of a treatment for drug-resistant childhood epilepsy caused by potassium channel dysfunction.

Dr J D Lippiat, Dr S Clapcote, Dr S Muench

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

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.

Gain-of-function mutations in the human gene KCNT1, which encodes the KNa1.1 sodium-activated potassium channel, cause severe childhood epilepsy that cannot be controlled by current medication.

Dissecting the molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in bacterial pathogens

Research Group: Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology

Dr A O'Neill

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

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.

Antibiotics make possible the treatment and cure of life-threatening bacterial infections. Since their introduction in the middle years of the 20th Century, they have added ~10 years to the human lifespan, and have become a cornerstone of modern medicine.

Epigenetics and Cancer: Determining how Mistakes in V(D)J Recombination Trigger Leukaemias and Lymphomas

Research Group: School of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Dr J Boyes

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

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.

V(D)J recombination is essential to produce an effective adaptive immune system but since the reaction involves the breakage and rejoining of DNA, it is highly dangerous and errors have long been thought to lead to leukaemias and lymphomas.

Epigenetics and Cancer: Development of Novel Tools to Determine how Aberrant V(D)J Recombination Reactions Cause Leukaemia

Research Group: School of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Dr J Boyes

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

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.

V(D)J recombination generates a highly diverse set of immunoglobulin and T cell receptor genes to enable vertebrates to fight a vast range of infections.

Genomic basis of extra-group paternity in the cooperatively breeding Seychelles warbler

Dr H L Dugdale

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

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.

Indirect genetic benefits are hypothesised to drive the evolution of extra-group paternity (EGP), yet its genomic basis is unknown.

Identifying cardiac disease markers using non-lethal ’biopsy’ of cells.

Research Group: School of Biomedical Sciences

Dr A.J. Smith

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

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.

This project will build on our recent exciting discovery that a novel chemical tool, the polymer styrene maleic acid (SMA), can ‘biopsy’ human vascular cells, extracting proteins from the membrane without killing the cells.

Marine ecology and spatial planning for changing coral reef ecosystems

Research Group: School of Biology

Dr M Beger

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

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.

This is an open call for international or self-funded students who wish to develop their skill base in marine conservation science.

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

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)

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.

Synthetic Virology: Development of gene delivery vectors/synthetic vaccines

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)

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.