PhD topics for research students

Find below a list of currently available self-funded PhD topics.

We encourage all students to contact the supervisor or the alternative contact person for more information and an informal chat to discuss the process of applying and preparing your research statement. For more information on how to apply click here.

Description
Supervisor
Funding
Bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles as Modulators of Host Immune Crosstalk in Colorectal Cancer Organoid Models
This project explores how outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) from gut microbiota and pathogenic bacteria shape immune responses in colorectal cancer. You’ll use advanced in vitro platforms — including or...
Self-Funded
Immunometabolic Regulation of B Cells in Gastric Cancer and Infection-Associated Immunity
This project aims to dissect the immunometabolic programming of B cell subsets in gastric cancer and their response to microbial stimuli such as Helicobacter infection. You'll examine how metabolic r...
Self-Funded
Advancing new therapies for Friedreich’s Ataxia (FRDA)
We are seeking a highly motivated and creative PhD candidate to work on a collaborative project aimed at the identification of therapies for an inherited neurodegenerative disease, Friedreich’s Ataxi...
Self-Funded
Exploring Novel Therapeutic Strategies for Friedreich’s Ataxia (FRDA)-Associated Cardiomyopathy
We are seeking a highly motivated and creative PhD candidate to work on a collaborative project aimed at the identification of therapies for an inherited neurodegenerative disease, Friedreich’s Ataxi...
Self-Funded
Exploring artificial intelligence for precision medicine
Cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, myocardial infarction, heart failure, and stroke, remain the leading causes of mortality worldwide and their prevalence continues to rise. These condit...
Self Funded
Elucidating the Neuropsychological and Genomic Mechanisms Underlying Psychosis in Older Adults with and Without Dementia
Psychosis, broadly defined by delusions and hallucinations, is a feature of many clinical conditions. Perhaps the best known of these is schizophrenia but psychosis also occurs in the context of demen...
Self-Funded
AI-Driven Multimodal Biomedical Data Fusion
Technological advances in biomedicine now enable the collection of high-dimensional, heterogeneous data across multiple platforms, including imaging, genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and clinic...
Self Funded
Elucidating the mechanisms of early-stage breast cancer initiation
Using both transgenic cell lines and transgenic mouse models available in our research group, this project will determine the causal effects of increased accumulation of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) ...
Self Funded
Individual histone modification roles in regulation of transcription and cell decision-making
We are looking for a highly motivated, technically able and independent-thinking candidate to undertake a PhD project exploring the role of individual histone modifications in nuclear organisation, re...
Self Funded
The effect on genome behaviour of growing cells in 3D matrices
There has been a small amount of evidence in the literature that growing cells in 3D scaffolds instead of 2D monolayers alters genome behaviour and organisation such that nuclear structure is altered ...
Self Funded