Dr J Curtin, Prof M Rattray, Prof A Simpson
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
Asthma, allergies and respiratory tract infections are the most common diseases in childhood and adulthood. The immune mechanisms governing the relationships between infection, allergy and increased risk of asthma development and asthma attacks are very poorly understood. A weakened immune response to viruses is strongly implicated in increased susceptibility to virus infections in asthma, but the mechanisms behind these weakened responses are unknown. In addition the mechanisms explaining increased susceptibility to bacterial infections in asthma are unknown.
The PhD student will join a well-resourced group and build on a BBSRC/MRC funded project aiming to understand the mechanisms of interplay between asthma, allergies and innate immune responses to viruses and bacteria. This project is being carried out jointly between the University of Manchester and Imperial College. This project is a dry project and will primarily analyse data we have already generated or are currently generating. We have already substantial clinical knowledge from a birth cohort- known as the Manchester Asthma and Allergy Study of 1000 children followed since birth to age 15 years designed to look for risk factors of asthma and allergies. These young adults are currently being assessed for these conditions at age 18 years. In addition our group is investigating changes in the way the body handles infection from bacteria and viruses from early to late childhood.
We are currently stimulating blood cells taken at ages 8, 11, 14 and 18 years from ~500 children with the most important viral bacterial and are currently measuring the responses of 28 cytokines to these stimuli. To complement this phenotypic and functional data we have GWAS and exon sequencing data from 360 putative candidate genes. This PhD studentship will harness the power of computational and systems biology to identify molecular and genetic predictors of these asthma phenotypes as well as asthma and asthma exacerbations. These approaches together will lead to the identification of new targets for the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for treatment/prevention of asthma, allergies and RTI.
This PhD project will provide comprehensive training from a multidisciplinary team with world-leading expertise in birth cohort/life course studies, respiratory infections, the immune system, genetic, asthma and allergies and computational analysis, resulting in a well-rounded asthma researcher.
www.manchester.ac.uk/research/john.curtin/
www.manchester.ac.uk/research/Magnus.rattray/
www.manchester.ac.uk/research/Angela.simpson/
Funding Notes
This project is to be funded under the MRC Doctoral Training Partnership. If you are interested in this project, please make direct contact with the Principal Supervisor to arrange to discuss the project further as soon as possible. You MUST also submit an online application form, full details on how to apply can be found on our website https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/study/research/funded-programmes/mrc-dtp/.
Applications are invited from UK/EU nationals only. Applicants must have obtained, or be about to obtain, at least an upper second class honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject.
References
1) Felix JF, Bradfield JP, Monnereau C, van der Valk RJ, Stergiakouli E, Chesi A, et al. Genome-wide association analysis identifies three new susceptibility loci for childhood body mass index. Hum Mol Genet 2016; 25:389-403.
2) van der Valk RJP, Kreiner-Møller E, Kooijman MN, Guxens M, Stergiakouli E, Sääf A, et al. A novel common variant in DCST2 is associated with length in early life and height in adulthood. Human Molecular Genetics 2015; 24:1155-68.
3) Paternoster L, Standl M, Waage J, Hansjörg B, Hotze M, Strachan DP, et al. Multi-ethnic genome-wide association study of 21,000 cases and 95,000 controls identifies 11 novel risk loci for atopic dermatitis. Nature Genetics 2015; 47:1449-56.
4) Semic-Jusufagic, et al. (2014) Assessing the association of early life antibiotic prescription with asthma exacerbations, impaired antiviral immunity, and genetic variants in 17q21: a population-based birth cohort study, Lancet Respir Med, 2(8), 621-30. eScholarID:230114
5) Bønnelykke et al (2014). A genome-wide association study identifies CDHR3 as a susceptibility locus for early childhood asthma with severe exacerbations, Nat Genet, 46(1), 51-5. eScholarID:242250
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