PhD Studentship: Severe mental illness, inflammation and cardiometabolic health

The GW4 BioMed3 Doctoral Landscape Programme is offering up to 18 MRC funded studentships across a range of biomedical disciplines, with a start date of October 2027.

These four-year studentships provide funding for fees and stipend at the rate set by the UKRI, as well as other research training and support costs, and are available to UK and International students.

This project is in competition for place with the projects across the MRC GW4 BioMed3 Doctoral Landscape Award studentships.  There are a total of 18 studentships available across the partnership.  

This exciting PhD combines big data and genetics to understand the complex relationships between severe mental illness, inflammation, and obesity and other adverse metabolic health outcomes. This research is important as people with severe mental illness are more likely to have adverse metabolic health problems and we don’t know why. Preliminary results from the supervisory team suggest inflammation may be a crucial factor. This PhD will test this idea in more detail using novel genetic epidemiological techniques in large global biobanks. The student will train in 3 world leading centres and will gain skills in immunology, statistics and genetic epidemiology.

These studentships are funded through GW4 BioMed3 MRC Doctoral Landscape Programme and consist of UK tuition fees, as well as a Doctoral Stipend matching UK Research Council National Minimum (£21, 805 p.a. for 2026/27, updated each year).

Additional research training and support funding of up to £5,000 per annum is also available.

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