PhD studentship in Computing - Bac2Code (EPSRC Portabolomics) - advancing the state of the art on DNA/RNA data storage in bacterial strains with an application to biotechnology

Number of awards:

1

Start date and duration:

As soon as possible for 3 years.

Overview:

Over the last couple of years great advances in the encoding of information in DNA sequences have been demonstrated. This has opened up the opportunity to utilise DNA as a data storage medium that has greater density and durability than existing electronic counterparts. This doctoral project, which is part of a large multidisciplinary multi-million points EPSRC programme grant Portabolomics (https://portabolomics.ico2s.org/), will seek to advance the state of the art on DNA/RNA data storage in bacterial strains with an application to biotechnology.

This studentship provides a unique opportunity to perform interdisciplinary, high-impact research within a well-funded group of interdisciplinary researchers. The successful candidate will join the ICOS group (http://ico2s.org/), which consists of 50 individuals conducting cutting-edge research at the interface of computing science and complex biological systems and will be part of the Portabolomics team. The later includes computer scientists, social scientists, molecular biologists, microbiologists, chemists, mathematicians and has a large number of industrial sponsors.

The PhD student will develop molecular microbiology techniques for DNA/RNA data storage (e.g. reading, writing, searching and coding data) and will have the opportunity to learn the required bioinformatics skills to interface biology and computing. They will be based at a newly refurbished state-of-the-art laboratory and will have the opportunity to participate from a vibrant scientific culture with seminars from the ICOS group, the Centre for Synthetic Biology and the Bioeconomy and the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology.

Please note: although you will be registered for a PhD in the School of Computing this is a molecular microbiology laboratory based project and you will have access to state-of-the-art wet-lab experimental facilities.


Sponsor:

School of Computing (https://bit.ly/2wNcHFF), Newcastle University (https://bit.ly/2MNx3bP)

Name of supervisor(s):

Professor Natalio Krasnogor, School of Computing (https://bit.ly/2oJzAp6)

Eligibility Criteria:

The successful candidate has an excellent first degree in, e.g., microbiology, biochemistry, biology or molecular biology.
This award is open to UK/EU applicants only.

How to apply:

You must apply through the University’s online postgraduate application system (https://bit.ly/2Q5o9Vd). To do this please ‘Create a new account’.

Only mandatory fields need to be completed. However, you will need to include the following information:

insert the programme code 8050F in the programme of study section
select ’PhD Computer Science (FT) - Computing Science’, as the programme of study
insert the studentship code COMP001
attach covering letter, CV and (if English is not your first language) a copy of English language qualifications. The covering letter must state title of studentship, quote reference COMP001 and describe how your research interests fit with the topic of research project outlined in the advertisement (maximum of two pages).
please send your covering letter and CV by e-mail to [Email Address Removed].