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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
Use of inertial sensors for fall prediction in older people
Falls in older people are a common cause of morbidity, mortality and loss of function. The physiological changes to the motor and sensory functions caused by ageing combined with the presence of other...
Self Funded
Weibull analysis and extreme regression for small and big data
Weibull analysis is the popular method to make predictions about the life of all products in the population by fitting a statistical distribution to life data from a representative sample of units. We...
Self Funded
The functional neuroanatomical correlates of multitasking
Multitasking refers to doing two tasks at the same time, which usually results in severe performance decrements. In our research we aim to find out why these performance decrements occur and how they ...
Self Funded
Elucidating the molecular mechanisms of parasite-host interactions between snails and schistosomes
The parasitic disease Schistosomiasis affects 243 million people worldwide. Having hatched from human urine or faeces contaminating water-bodies, the parasite must seek and infect a compatible water s...
Self Funded
Loneliness and social isolation in later life: a longitudinal analysis of growing old in Brazil
Within the developed world research has consistently demonstrated that social relationships are key to a good quality of life and wellbeing in old age. Loneliness and isolation are two established mea...
Self Funded
Designing and engineering new chassis strains of E. coli for synthetic biology
This is an experimental project seeking to engineer new strains of E. coli (the most widely used species for biotechnology applications) which have increased ability to survive and grow in the presenc...
Self Funded
Seeking critical branch points in bacterial evolution with comparative genomics
This is a bioinformatics and comparative genomics-focussed project, seeking to identify the basis of speciation and sub-speciation of bacterial species accounting for the development of individual and...
Self Funded
Disrupting the regulatory mechanisms that allow hospital acquired infections to resist antibiotic therapy.
The discovery of penicillin over 90 years ago and its subsequent uptake by healthcare systems around the world revolutionised global health and wellbeing. It marked the beginning of a golden age in an...
Self Funded
Involvement of the matrix protein SPARC in the dynamic interaction between tumour and host cells
Tumour growth depends on the crosstalk between malignant and surrounding stromal cells (fibroblasts, osteoblasts, endothelial cells and inflammatory cells). Malignant cells secrete soluble proteins th...
Self Funded
Shape Memory Materials for Additive Manufacturing
Additive Manufacturing or 3D Printing is an emerging technology that has gained popularity within the disciplines of design, engineering and manufacturing. The aim of this PhD is to build a knowledge ...
Self Funded