Bioengineering
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick-King's College London Joint PhD project with Saverio Tedesco (Crick) and Andrea Serio (KCL). Project background and description Current in vitro models of human skeletal muscle are transforming our understanding of neuromuscular biology, yet important limitations remain.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bacteriology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Pontus Skoglund. Project background and description This PhD-student will join the Crick ancient genomics laboratory and Group Leader Pontus Skoglund to study functional evolution and history in the human past. We use approaches in computational biology, bioinformatics, population genetics and statistical genetics to address questions about human evolution and ancestry, using thousands of ancient genomes sequenced in our lab.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Neuroscience
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Petr Znamenskiy. Project background and description The Znamenskiy lab studies the organisation of neural circuits in the neocortex, aiming to explain how the computations performed by cortical circuits arise from the organisation of their connections.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Frank Uhlmann. Project background and description In the Chromosome Segregation Laboratory, we investigate molecular mechanisms that underpin faithful chromosome segregation during cell division.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Neuroscience
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Florencia Iacaruso. Project background and description The convergence of inputs from different sensory modalities onto individual neurons is a fundamental organisational principle of the nervous system, enabling organisms to integrate complex information about their environment and generate appropriate behavioural responses. This mechanism is conserved across species and occurs throughout the brain.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biophysics
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Josh Bull. Project background and description The tumour microenvironment is a complex ecosystem, driven not just by the uncontrolled growth of cancerous cells, but also by their interactions with immune cells, vasculature, stroma, and the surrounding tissue architecture. Distinct cell types continually influence one another’s behaviour, at short-range through direct contact or at longer length scales, e.g.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Peter Rosenthal. Project background and description Our group studies the architecture of large protein and membrane assemblies to understand basic molecular mechanisms involved in virus infection. We apply cryo-EM to understand the structure and function of lipid-enveloped viruses such as influenza virus and retroviruses.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick-King's College London Joint PhD project with Jurg Bahler (Crick) and Snezhana Oliferenko (KCL). Project background and description Cellular quiescence is an evolutionarily ancient yet understudied strategy characterised by suspended proliferation and increased resilience, enabling long-term viability and reproductive potential under adverse conditions.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cancer Biology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Dominique Bonnet. Project background and description Background Clonal haematopoiesis (CH) is an age-associated condition in which haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) clones carrying somatic mutations acquire a competitive advantage and progressively expand [1]. Among recurrent CH-associated mutations, SF3B1, which encodes a core component of the U2 spliceosome, is one of the most frequently mutated spliceosome genes.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Behavioural Biology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Michael Winding. Project background and description Collective behaviour is observed across the animal kingdom, from fish schools to insect foraging groups. Such behaviours allow animals to pool effort, reduce risk, and increase fitness. But they also increase competition and deplete food locally, suggesting that animals must compare the pros and cons of joining a collective.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Ian Taylor. Project background and description Zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) is an interferon-stimulated gene that restricts a wide range of viruses including retroviruses, Ebola virus, hepatitis B virus and SARS-CoV-2 [1]. It binds CpG dinucleotide arrays in viral RNA, constituting a ZAP-response element (ZRE), to target it for degradation.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Ester Morreale. Project background and description Our lab aims to establish targeted protein degradation (TPD) technology in pathogenic bacteria, addressing the critical need for novel antibiotic development strategies. TPD technology relies on eliminating target proteins from the cell using small molecule degraders, rather than temporarily inhibiting them with conventional inhibitors.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bioinformatics
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with George Kassiotis. Project background and description A major force in the evolution of new molecular and cellular functions is the genetic diversity provided by transposable elements (TEs) [1]. Highly abundant in the genome, TEs can be co-opted in new functions that increase host fitness. There are ~4 million individual TE integrations in the human genome, amounting to nearly half of our DNA.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Behavioural Biology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Jonny Kohl. Project background and description Our goal is to understand how physiological states shape information processing in the brain. Instinctive behaviours such as parenting, aggression or feeding are orchestrated by evolutionarily sculpted neural circuits.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biodiversity
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Katya Osipova. Project background and description Metabolic rate, the speed at which organisms extract energy from nutrients, is a fundamental and universal property of life. It defines the efficiency of energy turnover and plays a crucial role in determining cell fate. However, the genetic elements controlling metabolic rate remain largely unknown.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Developmental Biology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Naomi Moris. Project background and description Gametes (sperm and egg) originate from progenitors called ‘germ cells’ that arise early in embryo development, and are crucial for the fertility of the offspring.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bacteriology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Adam Sateriale. Project background and description Cryptosporidium is an intracellular parasite that causes a severe diarrhoeal disease known as cryptosporidiosis. In young children cryptosporidiosis infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality; even mild cases are linked to growth stunting and impaired cognitive development.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bioinformatics
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Margarida Cardoso Moreira. Project background and description How can the immune system evolve to accept a genetically mismatched tissue? That is the challenge posed by the evolution of the placenta. The placenta allows mothers to provide nutrients directly to their developing embryos and, to function, requires extensive interactions between maternal and (genetically mismatched) embryonic tissues.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick-University College London Joint PhD project with Peter Rosenthal (Crick) and Amandine Marechal (UCL). Please note: to apply to this project, candidates must be eligible for home tuition fee status. Project background and description Cells respond to changes in their environment by rapid and coordinated adaptation of metabolism and organelle function.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Alessandro Costa. Project background and description DNA must be replicated only once per cell cycle to maintain chromosome integrity and prevent the onset of cancer. Eukaryotic cells have evolved to achieve this by temporally separating the loading of the replicative helicase from its activation.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Epidemiology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Philippa Matthews. Project background and description This project will be nested in the work of the ‘Hepatitis B elimination lab’ at the Crick. The team works on a broad range of projects spanning wet lab, clinical cohorts, ‘big data’ and epidemiology to address questions that are of translational relevance to tackling the global health threat of Hepatitis B virus (HBV).
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Paul Nurse. Project background and description The cell cycle is the process by which all cells reproduce. It underpins the growth and development of all organisms and plays a key role in cancer when cell reproduction goes out of control. Cyclin Dependent Kinases (CDKs) are the major regulators of the eukaryotic cell cycle, controlling onset and progression through S-phase and mitosis.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Michael Way. Project background and description Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that critically depend on their hosts to generate new progeny. Investigating how viruses use the different cellular machineries and processes of their hosts during replication, assembly and spread offers a unique opportunity to obtain mechanistic insights into the regulation and function of diverse cellular processes.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cell Biology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Nic Tapon. Project background and description How do cells in a developing organism stop growing and dividing when the correct body size has been reached? How is tissue size maintained in an adult organism?
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bioengineering
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick-University College London Joint PhD project with James Briscoe (Crick) and Roberto Mayor (UCL). Please note: to apply to this project, candidates must be eligible for home tuition fee status. Project background and description Neural crest cells (NCCs) are a highly migratory and multipotent embryonic cell population whose behaviour has often been likened to malignant invasion.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bioinformatics
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick-King's College London Joint PhD project with George Kassiotis (Crick) and Sheila Singh (KCL). Project background and description The human genome is not the static blueprint it was once thought to be. Nearly half of it consists of transposable elements (TEs) — mobile genetic sequences that have integrated into our DNA over millions of years of evolution.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biomedical Engineering
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Charlie McTernan. Project background and description We are a synthetic chemistry group working in supramolecular and biological chemistry, and nanotechnology. We work in the Francis Crick Institute in London, and at King's College London. Our research looks at how we can apply Supramolecular Chemistry in Biological settings. Supramolecular Chemistry is the study of intermolecular, non-covalent interactions.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick Joint PhD project with Alessandro Costa and Sergi Garcia-Manyes. Project background and description Alongside biochemical signals and genetic considerations, mechanical forces are rapidly emerging as a master regulator of human physiology, impacting functions as diverse as embryo development, skin integrity, immuno-response or cardiac contractility.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bacteriology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick-University College London Joint PhD project with Eachan Johnson (Crick) and Kristine Arnvig (UCL). Please note: to apply to this project, candidates must be eligible for home tuition fee status. Project background and description The human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is renowned for its pronounced cell-to-cell variability within populations of genetically identical cells [1].
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Immunology
The Francis Crick Institute
About the Project A 2027 Crick PhD project with Andreas Wack. Project background and description We are interested in determinants of disease severity in lung infections including influenza, COVID and bacterial infections. We study this in organotypic lung in vitro models as well as in vivo models, using bacterial and viral strains that lead to infection in mice, including mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 virus. We are interested in several aspects: 1.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 2 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)