Transcriptional networks impacting metabolism and cytoarchitecture during ageing
- Supervisors: Dr Charalampos (Babis) Rallis
- Funding: SBBS Start-up Studentship
- Deadline: 31st October 2023
The following fully-funded PhD studentship is available in the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences with an expected start date of Jan 2024.
Research environment
The School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences at Queen Mary is one of the UK’s elite research centres, according to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF). We offer a multi-disciplinary research environment and have approximately 180 PhD students working on projects in the biological and psychological sciences. Our students have access to a variety of research facilities supported by experienced staff, as well as a range of student support services.
In addition to working with the Rallis group (www.rallislab.org), the student will have the opportunity to interact with collaborators at UCL and the Francis Crick Institute.
Training and development
Our PhD students become part of Queen Mary’s Doctoral College which provides training and development opportunities, advice on funding, and financial support for research. Our students also have access to a Researcher Development Programme designed to help recognise and develop key skills and attributes needed to effectively manage research, and to prepare and plan for the next stages of their career.
The student will obtain training in human cell culture, microscopy and live cell imaging, multi-omics approaches and downstream computational analyses.
Project description
We study gene and protein networks implicated in cellular fitness and metabolism, neurodegeneration, cancer and ageing with a focus on the Target of Rapamycin (TOR) signalling pathway. Our aim is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms and principles behind senescence and lifespan and apply this knowledge for the amelioration of age-related diseases. TOR is an evolutionarily conserved, nutrient-responsive pathway that, within all eukaryotes, coordinates basic anabolic and catabolic cellular processes such as gene transcription, protein translation, autophagy, metabolism, vesicular transport and secretion.
The student will focus on understanding relationships and interplays between cellular cytoarchitecture, metabolism and lifespan downstream of TOR and other nutrient-and stress-responsive pathways, using a variety of cellular model systems (fission and human cells) and approaches such as microscopy, transcriptomics and epigenomics. The main aim is to investigate how transcription factors and their networks shape basic cellular metabolism, how this impacts to cellular space arrangements across the lifecourse, and vice versa.
Opportunities to collaborate with several groups within QMUL and beyond and extend the studies to multicellular models will be given.
Funding
The studentship is funded by Queen Mary and will cover home tuition fees, and provide an annual tax-free maintenance allowance for 3 years at the UKRI rate (£20,622 in 2023/24).
For international students interested in applying, please note that this studentship only covers home tuition fees and students will need to cover the difference in fees between the home and overseas basic rate. Details on current (2022-23) tuition fee rates can be found at: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/funding_phd/tuition-fees/
Eligibility and applying
Applications are invited from outstanding candidates interested in interdisciplinary life sciences research with or expecting to receive a first or upper-second class honours degree in an area relevant to the project such as biochemistry, biomedical sciences, cell and molecular biology or genetics.
Past research experience (internships or summer studentships) will be valuable. Tissue culture experience, microscopy preparations or techniques, gene targeting approaches as well as data analysis or coding experience can also be valuable.
Applicants from outside of the UK are required to provide evidence of their English language ability. Please see our English language requirements page for details: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/international-students/englishlanguagerequirements/postgraduateresearch/
Informal enquiries about the project can be sent to Charalampos Rallis at c.rallis@qmul.ac.uk Formal applications must be submitted through our online form by the stated deadline.
The application includes a proposal section. For this section, candidates must provide a short (max. 500 words) piece proposing experiments that dissect the functions of a transcription factor which operates downstream of the mTOR pathway in human cells. Information and context can be taken from the provided references and independently. Appropriate justifications for the experiments and experimental system/s used should also be included.
The School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences is committed to promoting diversity in science; we have been awarded an Athena Swan Silver Award. We positively welcome applications from underrepresented groups.
http://hr.qmul.ac.uk/equality/
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sbcs/about-us/athenaswan/