PhD Studentship - FSE PhD President's Doctoral Scholarship - Mechanochromic Molecules for Cellular Forces Sensing

This 4-year PhD studentship is open to both Home (UK) and international applicants. The successful candidate will receive an annual stipend at the UKRI minimum rate (currently £21,805 per year) plus £1,000/annum enhancement, and a research training support grant of up to £20,000 for the full 4-year programme. This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually, the projects that receives the best applicants will be successful.

Tensile forces influence a variety of important cellular processes including cell division, stem cell differentiation and gene expression.

1. At the tissue level these forces play a crucial role in morphogenesis, wound healing, the immune response and in pathological processes such as cancer metastasis. However, our understanding of how force influences cell function is very limited due to a lack of techniques to measure force within live tissue. To date, genetically encoded tension sensors have been developed, but their use in whole tissues has so far been limited. One reason for this limited use is the low sensitivity of current in vivo tension sensors. At the molecular level, the unique ability of mechanical force to distort, bend and stretch chemical bonds has led to the development of mechanochromic molecules acting as spatially sensitive molecular probes or micro-crack sensors in synthetic materials.
2. Chemical mechanosensors offer a potentially powerful solution to this problem but have yet to be translated into biological systems. Here we will take a multidisciplinary approach to bridge this gap and aim to develop and test novel chemical force sensors suitable for measuring tensile forces at cellular/tissue level.

The goals of this project are:

• The creation of new mechanochromophores that can be used as force sensors in a biological context
• Determine how physicochemical parameters influence mechanochromophore activation and fluorescence.
• Demonstrate the performance of selected mechanochromophores using human cells as a biological model system.

The postgraduate researcher (PGR) will be trained by means of a training-through-research model by:

Prof. De Bo and senior members of the De Bo group on mechanochemistry and various aspects of organic and polymer chemistry.

Dr Amer and senior members of the Amer group on cell culture, confocal microscopy, and force microscopy.

Before you apply: Please contact the main project supervisor, Prof De Bo, to learn more about the project and discuss whether it may be suitable for you.

To be considered for this project you must submit a formal application through our online application portal by following the instructions provided here. Please note that you must select programme FSE PhD President’s Doctoral Scholarship:

If you already have an applicant account, use this link to open an application for FSE PhD President's Doctoral Scholarship. If you do not yet have an applican account, follow the account setup instructions and then use this link to open an application for the correct programme.

Please specify the full title and supervisor/s of the project, details of your previous study, and names and contact details of two referees. You must also upload a Supporting Statement describing your motivation to apply to the project, your CV and transcripts of awarded and in-progress university qualifications. Please note late or incomplete applications will not be considered.

Applicants are expected to hold (or be about to obtain) a minimum upper second-class undergraduate honours degree (or equivalent) in Chemistry. Research experience in synthetic organic chemistry is desirable.

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