PhD Studentship: Developing cell lineage tracing methods to study the development of human retina

Award Summary

100% of home tuition fees paid and an annual stipend (living expenses) of £17,668. Successful international (including EU) candidates will be required to fund the difference between the home fees and international fees.

Overview

Are you interested in developing novel bioinformatics technologies to analyse data generated from cutting edge genomics technologies? Advances in single cell and spatial transcriptomic technologies have the potential to revolutionise our understanding of disease and development but there is currently a deficit in specialised bioinformatics tools to mine these rich datasets. The aim of this PhD is to develop novel bioinformatics methods which will be applied to the study of the human retina and to elucidate processes that underpin development and provide insights into causes of blindness.

The retina is a complex and fascinating structure at the back of the eye made up of many distinct cell types all of which derive from progenitor cells. You will develop cell lineage tracing methods, to track the transition between progenitor and specialised cell types, using naturally occurring somatic mutations within existing single cell datasets. You will evaluate the multivariate analysis techniques to combine information from multiple mutations to improve lineage tracing methods. 

Working with experts in bioinformatics, stem cell technologies, machine learning and AI you will gain expertise in these key areas. We are active members of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA), an ambitious international project to map every cell in the body and your research will contribute directly to this global research. 

Number Of Awards

1

Start Date

September 2023

Award Duration

The funding covers a three-year PhD

Application Closing Date

14 April 2023

Sponsor

Newcastle University NUAcT fellowship PhD Studentship

Supervisors

Dr Rachel Queen and Professor Majlinda Lako, Biosciences Institute

Eligibility Criteria

You must have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2:1 honours degree, or a Masters at grade Merit or above, or international equivalent in an appropriate subject, including: bioinformatics, computational biology, computational statistics, or biomedical sciences. 

Applicants whose first language is not English require an IELTS score of 6.5 overall with a minimum of 5.5 in all sub-skills.

How To Apply

Register and apply through the University’s Apply to Newcastle Portal. 

Select ‘Create a Postgraduate Application’ and identify your programme of study using ‘Course Search’, searching for the ‘Course Title’ with the programme code 8420F. Select ‘PhD Biosciences (FT)' as the programme of study.

Provide the following information in the ‘Further Questions’ section:

• A ‘Personal Statement’ (this is a mandatory field) - upload a document or write a statement directly in to the application form
• The reference code BI061 in the ‘Studentship/Partnership Reference’ field
• When prompted for how you are providing your research proposal - select ‘Write Proposal’ and type in the title of the research project from this advert - you do not need to upload a research proposal.

You will not be able to submit your application until you have submitted the following documents:

• covering letter including the title of the studentship, the reference code BI061, and how your interests and experience relate to the project.
• CV
• degree transcripts and certificates and, if English is not your first language, a copy of your English language qualification if already completed

Contact Details

For further details, please contact:

Dr Rachel Queen

Biosciences Institute

E-mail: rachel.queen@ncl.ac.uk

Telephone: +44 (0) 191 241 8868

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