PhD Studentship: Unravelling Interkingdom Signalling Using Chemical Probes

Funding

EPSRC Doctoral Training Partnership Studentship offering the award of fees, together with a tax-free maintenance grant of £19,237 per year for 3.5 years. 

Lead Supervisor’s full name & email address

Dr Megan Wright – m.h.wright@leeds.ac.uk  

Co-supervisor name(s)

To be confirmed

Project summary 

We are a chemical biology group who apply chemical tools to understand biological mechanism in health and disease. This proposal is representative of the projects currently on offer in our group. We welcome applicants from both a chemistry or biochemistry background.

In the group we are developing chemical tools to study small molecule-protein interactions in a wide variety of biological systems. We are interested in mapping ligand binding sites on receptors, profiling protein post-translational modifications, and identifying the protein targets of bioactive compounds. One approach we use is to synthesise functional probes that are weaponised with reactive tags to covalently label proteins, and that are also equipped with clickable tags to capture probe-protein complexes for further analysis. Click chemistry is very versatile and can be used to attach different chemical groups for imaging or identification of proteins by mass spectrometry.

In this project you will synthesise and apply chemical tools to understand the mode of action of small molecules involved in host-microbe communications. The human microbiota - the collection of microbes living in or on our bodies - is intrinsically linked with health and implicated in a wide range of diseases from diabetes to cancer. There is increasing evidence that bacterial and human cells listen in on each others communications, but only a fraction of these interactions is characterised. For example, bacteria respond to human signalling molecules such as hormones, peptides, lipids and steroids; many of the molecular mechanisms underlying these are unknown.

In this project you will construct novel chemical tools and platforms to study such interkingdom signalling. Over the course of the project you will receive training in organic synthesis, cell biology, biochemical techniques and mass spectrometry-based proteomics.

For more details of active research projects, please visit our webpage at: https://wright.leeds.ac.uk/

Please state your entry requirements plus any necessary or desired background

First or Upper Second Class UK Bachelor (Honours) or equivalent

Subject Area

Microbiology, Biochemistry, Organic Chemistry

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