Dr Nick D Evans
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
Bone repair is a big problem in society that is set to get worse as the average age of people increases. Surprisingly often bones don’t heal as well as they should, leading to pain and immobility for many people. New treatments are urgently required to help improve this clinical problem. In this project, you will investigate ultrasonic bubbles as a means of achieving this.
Acoustic bubbles resonate when excited by ultrasound. This property allows us to use them for imaging organs and tissues, but we have found can also be used to stimulate them. For example, they can be induced to release drugs or to move cells around. This means that they may be used to deliver drugs to the right cells at the right time by stimulating them by ultrasound from outside the body
During this PhD you will make acoustic bubbles or nanodroplets that expand into bubbles when excited by sound. You will load molecules into the bubbles and test whether they release drugs, and how this affects cells and tissues. You will specifically work out if they can be used to stimulate stem cells to make bone.
You will work in a vibrant, multidisciplinary team between the Faculties of Medicine and Engineering at the University. Successfull applicants should have a 2:1 or equivalent and ideally you will have a background in bioengineering, but we encourage applications from talented individuals with backgrounds in biology, physics and chemistry.
The studentship will be funded at the current Research council stipend rate.
If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Nick Evans, Bioengineering research group, Email: [Email Address Removed], or Dario Carugo, Email: [Email Address Removed] Tel: +44 (0) 238120 3293 or 023 8059