We have 300 gene PhD Projects, Programmes & Scholarships

We are accepting candidatures for PhD students enthusiastic about finding cures for neuromuscular diseases or willing to explore and learn gene therapy technologies using models of neuromuscular diseases. Read more

Supervisor: Dr AB Malerba

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Understanding the evolution of gene regulatory networks through biophysical modelling and machine learning

The University of Manchester Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

The ability to coordinate the expression of genes within a cell is at the heart of life. When and how much of a specific gene is turned into a protein is essential for organisms to respond to their environment and to manage resources. Read more

Supervisors: Dr M Lagator, Prof M Rattray

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Investigating the regulation of neutrophil gene expression by intracellular signalling and small non-coding RNAs

University of Liverpool Institute of Life Course and Medical Sciences

Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID) such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) affect millions of people worldwide and cause debilitating and disabling musculoskeletal disease. Read more

Supervisors: Dr HL Wright, Prof MJ Peffers

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Development of novel lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for targeted gene delivery to cancer cells

University of Portsmouth School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences

Applications are invited for a self-funded, 3 year full-time PhD project. The PhD will be based in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Science and will be supervised by Dr Roja Hadianamrei and Dr Sassan Hafizi. Read more

Supervisors: Dr R Hadianamrei, Dr S Hafizi

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Gene regulation in cancer metastasis

King’s College London Randall Centre for Cell and Molecular Biophysics

A PhD project studying gene regulation in cancer metastasis is available in the laboratory of Dr. Fiona Wardle (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/wardle-group) in the Randall Centre for Cell and Molecular Biophysics, King’s College London. Read more

Supervisors: Dr F Wardle, Prof C Wells

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Control of gene expression in embryonic development

The University of Manchester Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

The impressive range of anatomical variations observed in animals along their body axis is the result of distinct control mechanisms governing gene expression. Read more

Supervisors: Prof N Bobola, Dr M Birket

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Understanding Spinal Cord Regeneration: The role of dynamic gene expression

The University of Manchester Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

Spinal cord injury(SCI) paralysis is a devastating disease that affects at least 2500 people per year in the UK. It carries substantial individual and societal costs with most SCI sufferers experiencing chronic pain. Read more

Supervisors: Dr X Soto Rodriguez, Dr K Dorey, Dr Cerys Manning

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Development and validation of a radiosensitivity gene expression signature in prostate cancer

The University of Manchester Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

Prostate cancer (PCa) is diagnosed in 1.4 million men globally each year and causes 375,000 deaths, making PCa the second most common cancer and fifth most common cause of death from cancer in men[1]. Read more

Supervisors: Prof A Choudhury, Dr MR Reardon, Dr TS Smith

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Understanding gene regulation by HDAC1 complexes in development and cancer

University of Leicester Molecular and Cell Biology

Packaging DNA into nucleosomes helps protect the long fragile genomes of eukaryotic species. However, in doing so it becomes an ever-present physical barrier to the machinery required for its replication, repair and transcription. Read more

Supervisor: Prof S Cowley

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Stochastic modelling and inference for live-cell gene expression time-series data to unravel the mechanisms of stem cell differentiation

University of St Andrews School of Mathematics and Statistics

Research Group: Division of Statistics

This project will develop statistical methodology for noisy time-series data and stochastic computational models to analyse live-cell imaging data provided by the lab of our collaborator Dr Cerys Manning at the University of Manchester. Read more

Supervisor: Dr G Minas

Year round applications PhD Research Project Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

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Functions of cyclin-dependent kinase 11 (CDK11) in regulation of gene expression and tumorigenesis

Masaryk University Faculty of Medicine

Doctoral study program. Life Sciences. Research area. RNA/nucleic acids research in health, cancer biology. CDK11 is ubiquitously expressed in all tissues and the CDK11 null mouse is lethal at an early stage of development indicating an important role for Cdk11 in the adult as well as during development. Read more

Supervisor: Dr D Blažek

Year round applications PhD Research Project Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

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Short and long-term genetic and behavioural consequences of traumatic brain injury in fruit flies

University of Leicester Department of Genetics and Genome Biology

General background . How many fingers am I holding up? What day of the week is it? Follow my finger? These three questions are designed to test your sensory, memory and motor neural abilities following an accident; all three systems are affected by a severe deceleration of your brain. Read more

Supervisors: Dr B Warren, Dr E Rosato, Dr R Feuda

23 May 2024 PhD Research Project Competition Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

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Cancer: Investigation of accentuated mitochondrial ROS and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in cystic fibrosis and colorectal carcinoma.

University of Leeds Faculty of Medicine and Health

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is associated with an accentuated inflammatory response to bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS), increased resting energy expenditure and a higher than expected prevalence of gastrointestinal and other malignancies. Read more

Supervisors: Prof D Peckham, Prof D Jayne, Dr S Savic, Miss LR Caley

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Self-funded PhD in Biology: Engineering Gene Regulatory Networks To Enhance Crop Disease Resistance

University of York Department of Biology

Lead supervisor: Prof K Denby . Co-Supervisor: Dr B R Lichman. The student will be registered with the Department of Biology. Read more

Supervisors: Prof K Denby, Dr B R Lichman

30 June 2024 PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Next Generation Oligonucleotide Drugs for Gene Therapy

University of Portsmouth School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences

Synthetic oligonucleotides are short strands of DNA that can be used to treat or manage a wide range of diseases, for example by silencing malfunctioning genes. Read more

Supervisor: Dr D Rusling

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Harnessing the genetics of DNA methylation to understand context-specific gene regulation in disease

University of Bristol Bristol Medical School

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) have discovered many genetic associations for traits and diseases. However, most GWAS signals reside in non-coding regions (outside genes), and it is likely that GWAS variants confer their effects through modulating regulatory mechanism. Read more

Supervisor: Dr J Min

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Structure and function of enzyme complexes involved in post-transcriptional gene regulation

University of Nottingham School of Pharmacy

Many proteins in human cells function as part of high molecular weight multi-subunit assemblies. The structure and function of such large molecular machines is often difficult to characterise due to their complexity, low abundance and structural dynamics. Read more

Supervisor: Dr G S Winkler

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Harnessing the genetics of DNA methylation to understand context-specific gene regulation in disease

University of Bristol Bristol Medical School

Project Background. Genome wide association studies (GWAS) have discovered many genetic associations with health outcomes. However, most GWAS signals reside in non-coding regions and it is likely that GWAS variants confer their effects through a regulatory mechanism. Read more

Supervisors: Dr J Min, Dr E Hannon, Prof J MIll, Dr GL Leyden

Year round applications PhD Research Project Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

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Cell signalling and gene expression dynamics in Drosophila

The University of Manchester Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

During Drosophila development, cell signalling and gene expression are regulated in space and time to allow the correct cell fate decisions. Read more

Supervisor: Prof H Ashe

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Revealing the genomic basis of reproductive mode evolution and speciation in Littorina snails

University of Sussex School of Life Sciences

We are seeking an enthusiastic and motivated PhD student to study the links between reproductive mode evolution and speciation in intertidal snails from the genus Littorina. Read more

Supervisor: Dr S Stankowski

31 July 2024 PhD Research Project Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

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A Patient-derived 3D humanized model of ADCY5-related disease to accelerate therapeutic approaches for patients

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust BRC Translational Research (Non-Clinical) PhD Studentships

ADCY5-related disease is a genetic disorder caused by mutations in the ADCY5 gene, which encodes for the isoform 5 of adenylyl cyclase (ADCY5)1. Read more

Supervisors: Dr S Barral, Dr M Kurian, Dr HZ Zhou

15 May 2024 PhD Research Project Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

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Manipulation of neuroimmune responses and behaviour by infectious agents

University of Leeds Faculty of Biological Sciences

This project is available exclusively to self-funded students who wish to commence study for a PhD in the academic year 2023/24. The project focuses on how infectious agents modify the individuals that they infect and how neuroimmune responses to infection moderate behaviour changes in warm-blooded animals and humans. Read more

Supervisors: Dr G Mcconkey, Dr S Clapcote

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Using single cell transcriptomic and blood proteomic data to understand how pancreatic cancer causes diabetes and to find ways to detect the cancer earlier

University of Liverpool Department of Molecular and Clinical Cancer Medicine

Pancreatic cancer is the deadliest of the common cancers. Five-year survival remains low at 12%. Sadly for 80% of patients, by the time their cancer is diagnosed it has spread to distant organs making them ineligible for potentially curative surgery. Read more

Supervisor: Prof E Costello

23 May 2024 PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Bidirectional mobile sRNA signalling in pea-downy mildew interactions

University of Worcester Research School

Plants are constantly being challenged by microbial pathogens and they have evolved the capacity to detect and defend against these incoming microbes. Read more

Supervisor: Prof M Tor

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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Mining data from National genomics Research Library to enable new gene discovery

University of Sheffield School of Medicine and Population Health

Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) is a new genomic testing technology and process which became available through the NHS in April 2022. Read more

Supervisor: Dr M Balasubramanian

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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BARIToNE: Improving barley climate resilience using a candidate gene approach (Project code 24H)

The James Hutton Institute PhD Opportunities

Supervisors. Lead supervisor - Dr Martin Balcerowicz, University of Dundee. Second supervisor - Dr Craig Simpson, James Hutton Institute. Read more

Supervisors: Dr M Balcerowicz, Dr C Simpson, Ms G MacDonald

31 May 2024 PhD Research Project Competition Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

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BARIToNE: Improving barley climate resilience using a candidate gene approach (Project code 24H)

University of Dundee School of Life Sciences

Supervisors. Lead supervisor - Dr Martin Balcerowicz, University of Dundee. Second supervisor - Dr Craig Simpson, James Hutton Institute. Read more

Supervisors: Dr M Balcerowicz, Dr C Simpson, Ms G MacDonald

31 May 2024 PhD Research Project Competition Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

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Molecular dissection of horizontal gene transfer mechanisms in mycobacteria

University of Leicester Molecular and Cell Biology

A fully funded PhD position is available within the lab of Dr Abhinav KV at Leicester Institute of Structural and Chemical Biology (LISCB), University of Leicester, UK to carry out structural studies on large macromolecular machines that undertake horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in mycobacteria. Read more

Supervisors: Dr A Koyamangalath Vadakkepat , Prof J Schwabe

29 April 2024 PhD Research Project Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

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Understanding the role of spliceosome gene mutations in disease

The University of Manchester Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

The DNA of a cell is copied into a pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) that the cell uses as a template for protein production. Some of the information contained in DNA is not required for making proteins, therefore, unwanted information must be removed before a protein is made. Read more

Supervisors: Prof R O'Keefe, Prof B Newman

Year round applications PhD Research Project Self-Funded PhD Students Only

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