Development of fluxomics in Coxiella Burnetii to identify the metabolic requirements for its intracellular survival and replication in the host (CASE), BBSRC SWBio DTP PhD studentship 2025 Entry

About:

The BBSRC-funded SWBio DTP involves a partnership of world-renown universities, research institutes and industry, based mainly across the South West and Wales.

This partnership has established international, national and regional scientific networks, and widely recognised research excellence and facilities.

We aim to provide you with outstanding interdisciplinary bioscience research training, underpinned by transformative technologies.

Programme Overview:

You will be recruited to a broad, interdisciplinary project, supported by a multidisciplinary supervisory team, with many cross-institutional projects available. There are also opportunities to:

• apply your research in an industrial setting (DTP CASE studentships).

• undertake research jointly with our core and associate partners (Standard DTP studentships with an associate partner).

• work with other national/international researchers.

• undertake fieldwork.

Our structured training programme will ensure you are well equipped as a bioscience researcher, supporting careers into academia, industry and beyond. 

First year

We provide a broad awareness of the fundamental research approaches in life sciences and how they could be applied to real-life situations through:

• two rotation projects – both allied with but in different disciplinary areas related to the PhD project.

• three taught units – training in Statistics, Bioinformatics, coding, experimental design, innovation and understanding the impact of your research.

Of note: You will need to successfully complete the first year to progress into your second year of studies. Also, if you are unable to continue your PhD, an MRes exit route is available upon successful completion of the first year.

Second to fourth years

The remaining years will be more like a conventional PhD, where you will focus on your PhD project.

Project Description

Coxiella Burnetii is an obligate intracellular pathogen that causes q-fever in humans, referred to as a neglected zoonotic disease that can lead to serious illness and death it not diagnosed and treated on time. C. Burnetii is an understudied pathogen; the metabolism of the pathogen in vitro and in the host remains rudimentary. The limited knowledge on this pathogen’s microbiology and metabolism hinders development of new drugs and treatments. This PhD studentship will develop cutting-edge fluxomic techniques to study the metabolism of the pathogen. The aims include: (i) construction of genome scale metabolic network of C. Burnetii (ii) in vitro growth phenotype assessment using in silico genome scale modelling and drug target predictions (iii) flux spectral analysis to map which host metabolites are used by the pathogen during growth in human host cells and Galleria Mellonella as an ex vivo model. The outcomes of this project will provide (i) an improved understanding of which central carbon and nitrogen metabolic fluxes are important to sustain growth of C. Burnetii (ii) identification of important intracellular nutrients for C. Burnetii in the host (iii) identification of vulnerable drug targets.