Bioprospecting and enzyme design for the development of novel antifungal technologies

About the project

About the Project There is a drive towards developing new, safe and sustainable ingredients for use in consumer goods. Antimicrobial preservatives are centre front in the minds of consumers and regulatory bodies and present an opportunity for Engineering Biology to develop new solutions. Antimicrobials are abundant in Nature and their identification and derivatisation has given rise to many successful tools including antibiotics (e.g., penicillin), organic acids (e.g., lactic acid) and bacteriophages. Predatory bacteria including Lysobacter sp. hunt and consume other microorganisms secreting metabolites and enzymes which can target their prey and disrupt cellular integrity and viability and their potential as biocontrol agents has been demonstrated for crop protection. Included in their arsenal are enzymes, glucanases and chitinases, which are directed to and degrade fungal cell wall polysaccharides allowing access to the internal nutrients. Driven by breakthroughs in directed evolution, rational design, and more recently AIassisted modelling, enzyme engineering technology in a new and rapidly evolving era. This PhD project will leverage this new capability to investigate and develop glucanase and chitinase enzymes as potential new anti-fungal agents and to explore their performance in consumer good formulations. The project will employ a wide range of techniques underpinned by high throughput and automated workflows including bioprospecting of recombinant enzyme panels, enzyme assay development and implementation, carbohydrate chemistry/(automated)synthesis, structural biology and rational and directed evolution enzyme engineering. The successful candidate will be based at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology ( www.mib.ac.uk ), the UK’s first purpose-built institute for interdisciplinary research at the interface of the physical and life sciences. The institute is a leader in the field ofEngineering Biology and houses several centres of excellence including BioProcess: Biocatalysis and Protein Engineering Centre for Sustainable Synthesis, BioAID: AI-Driven Enzyme Design for Industry Biocatalysis as well as the FBRH: Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub. The institute has state-of-the-art laboratories for both synthetic and molecular biology, as well as the facilities for automated (robotic) biological workflows. Eligibility For admission in 2026, only Home UK students (normally resident in the UK for the past 3 years) eligible to apply. If you are unsure whether you meet the eligibility requirements, contact the project supervisor using the email address on the appropriate project details page. Applicants must hold, or be expected to achieve, a first or high upper second-class undergraduate honours degree or equivalent (for example BA, BSc, MSci) or a Masters degree in a relevant subject. Applicants who do not meet the minimum entrance requirements may be admitted if they can prove relevant professional experience which demonstrates that the applicant can follow andcomplete the programme. All students whose first language is not English must be able to provide recent evidence that their spoken and written command of the English language is adequate for the programme; see UniDLA website for further details. We recommend you draft your application based on the downloadable form here before completing the online form. Our Guidance for Applicants page will help you craft your application. Application deadline 2nd October 2026.

Research areas