Molecular Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Excitatory synapses are the principal sites at which information is integrated and stored in the brain, yet we still lack a molecularly resolved understanding of how their strength and plasticity are determined. AMPA glutamate receptors (AMPA-Rs) sit at the centre of this process, converting glutamate release into excitatory signals. AMPA-Rs are highly diverse signaling complexes.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Complex cells likely arose from the merger of an archaeal host cell with a bacterial cell some 2 billion years ago. As a consequence, many of the most conserved features of eukaryotic cell biology have their origins in archaea. It is not yet clear whether this includes cell cycle control machinery, since the close archaeal relatives of eukaryotes that possess an orderly cell cycle, lack CDK-cyclins.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Behavioural Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project The overall goal of our research is to discover the circuit implementation of learning and action selection. Since these functions likely emerge from parallel and distributed computations across many interconnected brain areas, over the past five years we have established an approach that involves combining comprehensive brain-wide analysis of structure and function in the tractable Drosophila larva.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project mTORC2 can integrate multiple activating influences to positively influence anabolism, survival and cytoskeletal remodelling. We have characterised a positive feedback loop between mTORC2 and AKT and have shown that mTORC2 has a great potential for activation that has been overlooked in previous work.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Behavioural Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Neuroscience in the fly and beyond is being transformed by the availability of connectomes, synaptic resolution wiring diagrams. We have played leading roles in two large collaborations that have recently generated and analysed separate (female) brain and (male) nerve cord connectomes for the fly. Furthermore, we have now completed a male CNS connectome (brain and nerve cord together).
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Molecular Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Connectomics is the study of biological neural networks at synaptic resolution. The resulting wiring diagrams teach us how information is processed in animal brains, including perception and behaviour [1]. However, connectomes have always been static snapshots where dynamics remain hidden.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Large multiprotein complexes perform many essential functions in eukaryotic cells. My lab purifies, assays and determines structures of these macromolecular machines to understand their mechanisms. This often involves a combination of several techniques or the development new methods. This PhD project will address DNA repair mechanisms, specifically the cellular response to DNA crosslinks and replication stress.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bioinformatics
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project The nervous system provides a wide range of signals to immune cells residing in peripheral tissues such as the lung, the salivary glands, the gut or the female reproductive tract. These neuronal cues are critical for immune homeostasis and modulation, and for boosting or curbing immune responses against viruses and other pathogens.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cell Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Many commonly used drugs would benefit from considering daily biological timing but mechanistic understanding of circadian medicine is limited (Cederroth et al). Traditional in vitro models do not recapitulate diurnal rhythms in human physiology because they lack the daily systemic cues encountered in vivo (Crosby et al., Edmondson et al), whereas lab mice are problematic due to their nocturnal physiology (Beale et al., Science, 2026).
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Developmental Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Neuronal activity is necessary for the establishment of correctly functioning neuronal circuits in development. Using the fruit fly embryo as a model, the student will image with eFIB-SEM, reconstruct, proofread and compare the connectome of the brain and nerve cord of a fruit fly embryo before and after the 1-hour critical period in late embryonic development as described by Crisp et al. 2011 (J.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Membrane traffic between organelles is essential for secretion, uptake of nutrients, and the regulation of signal transduction. At the centre of this system lies the Golgi apparatus - the major sorting station that directs traffic from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to the rest of the cell and links the secretory and endocytic pathways. The Golgi is a stack of flat compartments arranged from cis to trans.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Artificial Intelligence
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project RAS proteins are central molecular switches in human signalling and are among the most frequently mutated proteins in cancer. Yet, despite decades of structural studies, we still do not fully understand how the environment in which RAS actually functions – the plasma membrane – shapes its structure, dynamics and signalling [1].
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cell Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Mycobacterium tuberculosis infects macrophages and can commandeer their machinery to survive intracellularly. Infected macrophages aggregate into granulomas, hallmark immunopathological structures of TB. Often, granuloma macrophages clear infection; however, mycobacteria can exploit granulomas for disease progression.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project De novo protein folding is the fundamental process by which a polypeptide chain acquires its native conformation for the first time. All proteins are synthesised by the ribosome and can begin to fold co-translationally as the nascent chain emerges vectorially from the ribosome exit tunnel, exploring an evolving energy landscape shaped by translation kinetics, the ribosome, and molecular chaperones.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cell Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project The McDole lab seeks to understand how complex 3D structures in the embryo are sculpted from initially homogenous cell populations. For example, how does an intricate, functional organ such as a beating heart arise from a uniform ball of cells? How do tubes involute and tissues fold, and what are the physical forces that drive these shape changes?
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Neuropsychology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are the most common cause of inherited mitochondrial disease and are increasingly implicated in common age-related conditions including neurodegeneration. The pathogenic mechanisms of mtDNA mutations are poorly understood partly due to the striking phenotypic heterogeneity and complications of dynamic mutation heteroplasmy, rendering these conditions very difficult to treat.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)
Cell Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are the most common cause of inherited mitochondrial disease and are increasingly implicated in common age-related conditions including neurodegeneration. The pathogenic mechanisms of mtDNA mutations are poorly understood partly due to the striking phenotypic heterogeneity and complications of dynamic mutation heteroplasmy, rendering these conditions very difficult to treat.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)
Cell Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Our group studies mechanisms of brain health, ageing and disease focusing on the lysosomal protein transmembrane protein 106B (TMEM106B) which forms amyloids in the brain in an age-dependent manner. TMEM106B genetic variants have also been found to modulate healthy ageing and disease risk in frontotemporal lobal degeneration and Alzheimer’s disease.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Artificial Intelligence
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project The aim of this PhD project is to develop computer software for in situ structural biology projects. Specifically, software tools for the identification of macromolecular complexes in cryo-EM/cryo-ET data sets collected on thinned human and budding yeast cells. The main target is the kinetochore , but the methods developed will have applicability to other rare complexes present in cells.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Accurate gene expression in eukaryotic cells requires tight coordination between transcription and pre-mRNA splicing. During transcription by RNA polymerase II (Pol II), the spliceosome removes introns from nascent RNAs co-transcriptionally. How the transcription and splicing machineries communicate to ensure efficient and accurate splicing remains a fundamental biological question.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Behavioural Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project In recent years, great efforts have been made to map the synaptic wiring diagrams of simple and complex nervous systems. However, chemical synapses, the connections used in most connectomics research, represent only one type of functionally important signalling between neurons.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bacteriology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Ubiquitylation is essential for eukaryotic life. Until recently, proteins were the only substrates known to be modified with ubiquitin. Then we reported that the E3 ligase RNF213 ubiquitylates lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on bacteria that invade the host cytosol. LPS ubiquitylation marks bacteria for selective autophagy, thereby protecting the host from infection.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Neurodegenerative diseases are one of the greatest health challenges facing our society. This large group of diseases is characterised by the pathological assembly of specific proteins into amyloid filaments in the central nervous system. This includes the protein TDP-43 in motor neuron diseases (including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and multiple dementias.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project To understand and ultimately treat neurodegenerative diseases characterised by protein aggregates, one must understand how these aggregates accumulate, how they become toxic to brain cells and the mechanisms which allow them to spread. There are two projects available within the McMahon group to pursue these goals.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cell Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Cells are amazingly organized entities. Their resident proteins, nucleic acids, and small molecules are assembled into functional modules and segregated among numerous membrane-bound cellular compartments. A major goal of modern cell biology is to understand how protein biogenesis and cellular organization is achieved with high fidelity, and how errors in these processes are recognized and rectified by the cell.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Molecular Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Background: During cellular division, most bacteria and archaea assemble a ring structure that coordinates the separation of mother and daughter cells. The primary component of this cytokinetic ring is FtsZ, a bacterial tubulin homologue. FtsZ polymers act as a scaffold, guiding the downstream assembly of a multi-protein machinery known as the divisome. In E.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project A critical event in the origin of life is thought to have been the emergence of an RNA molecule capable of self-replication as well as mutation, and hence evolution towards ever more efficient replication. The Holliger lab uses synthetic biology approaches to reconstruct modern day equivalents of the ancestral replicase and study life’s first genetic system “by proxy” with the use of modern-day RNA enzymes (ribozymes) generated by in vitro evolution.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cell Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Transport of organelles, RNAs and proteins is essential for the development, health and function of neurons.Defects in the microtubule motors that drive the transport is linked to neurodegenerative and developmental diseases and the transport process is frequently hijacked by viruses. My lab is interested in how motors are linked to cargos and how they are coordinated to ensure delivery to the correct destination.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Our lab studies stress signaling and pioneers strategies that harness such pathways to enhance cellular resilience, a modality generically applicable to improve fitness in diverse diseases, including the age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) are clinically different yet share a common molecular aetiology.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Accurate genome duplication is essential for all forms of life. The molecular machinery that orchestrates this process is collectively termed the replisome — a complex assembly of molecular machines that coordinates DNA template unwinding, DNA synthesis, histone transfer, and other replication-coupled processes, including a variety of DNA repair mechanisms.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biophysics
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project TRIM21 is the cytosolic E3 ligase and antibody receptor responsible for intracellular antibody immunity. Unlike other ubiquitin ligases, TRIM21 doesn’t have a defined substrate but is directed towards its targets by antibodies. This unusual mechanism allows TRIM21 to target highly diverse substrates from bacteria and viruses to neurodegenerative aggregates and protein complexes.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project A major focus of the lab is understanding the links between replication and mutagenesis (1‑4). Extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) circles are present in a substantial proportion of cancers and frequently harbour oncogenes that drive tumour proliferation (5). The mechanisms governing their replication, and the extent to which this mirrors replication of the corresponding chromosomal loci, remain poorly understood.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cancer Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Our lab focuses on understanding the processes which lead to a reshaping of the nuclear compartment in health and disease. The nucleus is continuously reshaped by the cytoskeletal filaments that surround it. Human cells exploit this (cancer, gametes, mesenchymal, immune) by changing their nuclear-cytoskeletal architecture to suit their function.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Chemical synapses are cellular connections that define the organization and function of neuronal circuits and, as a result, the fundamental ability of the brain to acquire, process and store information. Two small molecules, glutamate (excitatory) and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA, inhibitory) mediate the majority of synaptic transmission in the vertebrate central nervous system.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Behavioural Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project How does the brain transform what we perceive into what we do? Even a simple action, such as stopping at a red light and moving again when it turns green, requires the brain to select relevant sensory information, form an intention, prepare an appropriate movement and execute it at the right moment. How neural circuits achieve this transformation from perception to action remains a fundamental question in neuroscience.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project Each cell relies on thousands of internal biochemical reactions, carried out by around ten thousand different types of proteins. These cellular proteins, collectively known as the proteome, must be synthesized in precise quantities, undergo correct folding, and be accurately localized within the cell.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cell Biology
Medical Research Council (Cambridge)
About the Project The first two weeks of human development transform a single-cell into a complex, bilaminar embryo. During this critical period, cells acquire distinct identies and organise into increasingly complex tissue architectures. By day 14, the human embryo contains the embryonic disc, which will generate the fetus, and a diverse set of extra-embryonic tissues that support the pregnancy.
- Location
- Cambridge, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 8 December 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)