05 PhD Degree-Fully Funded at University of Plymouth, England
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University of Plymouth, England invites online Application for number of Fully Funded PhD Degree at various Departments. We are providing a list of Fully Funded PhD Programs available at University of Plymouth, England.
Eligible candidate may Apply as soon as possible.
(01) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Choroid Plexus Pathology in Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimer’s Disease: Does Thyroid Hormone Transport Failure Drive Chronic Inflammation and Neurodegeneration?
Disability and dementia define the devastating diseases Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), but what drives the neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration? New research is focusing on the choroid plexus (ChP), a highly vascular structure hidden deep in the brain’s fluid-filled cavities. ChP is emerging as a major interface between the peripheral immune and central nervous system, an area of increasing importance in MS and AD. However, ChP also transports thyroid hormone (TH) into cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) which is then distributed throughout the brain.
TH is vital for neurophysiology and immunometabolism such as neurogenesis, growth factors, myelination, synapse formation, microglial activation and phagocytosis. Moreover, work shows ChP is inflamed in MS and AD where it may be vulnerable to pathogens including SARS-CoV-2.
This PhD will help determine if MS and AD ChP pathology leads to altered TH transport that then causes chronic inflammation and neurodegeneration in MS and AD. The student will use cutting-edge facilities to study TH metabolism and develop expertise in a range of laboratory techniques. These involve isolation of blood macrophages and in vitro cell culture for a human ChP model with immune assays and western blot; MS and AD human tissue bank brain and ChP samples for immunohistochemistry and fluorescence microscopy.
Overall, the project explores exciting concepts in macrophage biology, neurobiology, neurology and neuropathology. It is hoped the data will contribute to new clinical imaging and drug trials for MS and AD.
PhD position summary/title: Recreating brain tumours using patient-derived glioma stem cells hosted by normal brain cells to gain novel insights into tumourigenesis
Glioblastoma remains as an incurable brain tumour, with a median survival of 15 months. Major reasons for treatment failure include tumour heterogeneity, extensive infiltrative behaviour and the glioma stem cells (GSC), a subpopupation of tumours able to reform all tumour masses. These clinically relevant properties are not always recapitulated with traditional in vitro models, likely contributing to low success of clinical trials and highlighting the need for more translatable systems. Cerebral organoids, or mini-brains, are one of the most promising advances providing a physiological 3D substrate for glioma stem cells (GSC) to generate tumours that more closely mirror patient ́s GBMs. This PhD project aims to develop models towards human neural spheroids and/or organoids, and use these “mini-brain” platforms to generate infiltrative tumours using patient-derived GSCs. The model will then be validated as a more clinically relevant system to reveal novel mechanisms of tumour development and therapeutic resistance.
PhD position summary/title: Improved physical modelling techniques for new high capacity floating offshore wind turbines
Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) are widely seen as an essential part of many countries’ drive to achieve ‘net-zero’. However, the Levelised Cost of Energy of FOWT is still high compared with fixed foundation offshore wind, and therefore additional innovation is needed.
Scaled physical modelling of FOWT is a critical stage in the development of new design innovations, but represents a significant challenge. Hydrodynamic loads applied to platform and moorings from waves and currents are modelled in wave tanks, such as the COASTlaboratory’s Ocean Basin. However, aerodynamic loads also have a significant influence on the FOWT system’s response and cannot be ignored. The application of these aerodynamic loads without introducing unwanted scale effects to the experiment represents a significant challenge.
This PhD will explore the use of two techniques for overcoming this challenge, to enable the testing of high capacity FOWT. The first technique involves the wind turbine being replaced with thrusters which apply correctly scaled aerodynamic loads to the floating platform. The generated loads are controlled in real time using a surrogate model ‘trained’ using results from more complex numerical models. In the second approach COAST’s new 3 m x 2.8 m wind generator will be used to generate a wind field over the Ocean Basin. A model turbine will be installed on the scaled floating platform to generate the aerodynamic loads.
PhD position summary/title: Comparing toxicological response in fish and human cells in vitro: A step towards enhanced understanding of stress biology across vertebrates
Both animal and human cells express toxicological responses through highly conserved biological pathways when under stress. Elucidating common cellular response pathways in phylogenetically different cell types employing in vitro approaches is needed with an overall goal to harmonise the hazard and risk assessments. This inevitably requires adoption of New Approach Methodologies (NAM). Precise comparison of cascades of responses in established cell lines of different origins are however scarce. Whilst for human cells a range of ‘biomarker’ responses is employed to elucidate both non-specific and specific toxicity of chemicals, there has been limited progress for cells of fish origin. The necessity to adopt a common approach is being emphasized, despite inherent differences in these cell lines. Adopting integrated and interdisciplinary approaches, this stimulating project aims to make a step change by comparing the relative sensitivity of cell lines of humans and fish origin. The overall aims are to: (a) enhance our ability of using human cell line-based assays as proxy to inform potential effects in fish; (b) adopt basic biology and molecular approaches to compare the (biomarker) responses for environmentally relevant chemicals; (c) elucidate how these cell types respond under different exposure scenarios and (d) identify and explicate how various confounding factors influence the observed biological responses in cell line specific manner.
PhD position summary/title: Determining the dietary accumulation and toxicity of nanoplastics and nanomaterials in fish
Plastic pollution represents a global environmental challenge. Larger pieces of plastic can degrade to produce and release nanoplastics (NPs; <1 micron) that can enter the tissues of animals. In fish, NPs can pass across the gut epithelium in a matter of hours and then distribute around the rest of the internal organs.
Pollution such as NPs do not occur alone in the environment, but rather in the presence of other pollutants (or co-contaminants). These other pollutants may have effects on how the NPs enter animals, and the subsequent effects they may have. Other common pollutants include engineered nanomaterial (such as zinc oxide), as their manufacturing is increasing due to their use in electronic devices. However, the effect of combined NP and ENM exposure on animal physiology remains poorly understood.
This 4-year, fully funded project will continue to understand the effect of plastic pollution from dietary exposures (e.g., ingestion) in fish combined with the presence of zinc oxide ENMs.
The University of Plymouth is a public research university based predominantly in Plymouth, England, where the main campus is located, but the university has campuses and affiliated colleges across South West England. With 18,410 students, it is the 57th largest in the United Kingdom by total number of students (including the Open University).
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