PhD Studentship - Precision Medicine Project - Analysis of Biomarkers Correlating with Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation Outcome

Supervisor(s): Prof Alexander Medvinsky, Dr Andrejs Ivanovs, Dr Carsten Marr (Hemholtz Munich) & Prof Claudio Angione (Alan Turing Institute)

Background

Haematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) is a life-saving therapy for patients with haematological disorders. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is a clinically accepted source of therapeutic cells and is a vital resource when HLA matched unrelated adult donors are in limited supply. Some UCB, however, show delayed haematopoietic reconstitution and biased lineage differentiation, which needs to be addressed to fully unlock this valuable resource stored in large numbers around the world in stem cells banks. Our preliminary xenograft transplantation analysis revealed UCB molecular traits that can serve as complementary selection criteria to identify UCBs with superior haematopoietic reconstitution capacity. An awarded MRC DPFS grant allowed us to compose a consortium aiming to generate a robust molecular biomarker-based test system for identification of optimal UCB samples for clinical transplantations.

The proposed PhD project is closely associated with the aforementioned MRC DPFS project and aims to discover additional morphological traits. The methodology is based on the AI image-based analysis of UCB cells transplanted into immunocompromised NSG mice. This project will be conducted in the highly interactive environment of Medvinsky’s laboratory (University of Edinburgh) who are experts in mouse and human haematopoietic stem cell biology, and xenotransplantation into NSG recipients. The study will be co-supervised by experts in machine learning and clinical haematology.

Aims

• Classification of umbilical cord blood (UCB) samples by the transplantation outcome.
• Identification of morphological traits in UCB samples correlating with the transplantation outcomes.
• Determine how in vivo UCB transplantation outcomes correlate with in vitro differentiation.

Training outcomes

The student will acquire expertise in:

• Multi-lineage analysis of blood samples using flow cytometry and blood smears.
• In vitro differentiation myeloid and lymphoid assays.
• Expertise in machine learning.

Apply now

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The deadline for 26/27 applications is Monday 12^th January 2026

Applicants must apply to a specific project. Please ensure you include details of the project on the Recruitment Form below, which you must submit to the research proposal section of your EUCLID application.

Please ensure you upload as many of the requested documents as possible, including a CV, at the time of submitting your EUCLID application. 

Document

Precision Medicine Recruitment Form (878.56 KB / DOCX)

Q&A Sessions

Supervisor(s) of each project will be holding a 30 minute Q&A session in the first two weeks of December.

If you have any questions regarding this project, you are invited to attend the session on Wednesday 3^rd December at 3pm GMT via Microsoft Teams. Click here to join the session.

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