Funded PhD studentships in a diabetes related area of research
Applications are invited from students wishing to further their scientific careers by undertaking a PhD in a diabetes related area of research. Up to six studentships will be fully funded from autumn 2019 with enhanced stipends, funded from a major award.
This award reflects Exeter as a world-renowned centre of excellence for diabetes research. Students can select from any of the 16 projects. These projects have been carefully selected to provide students with an excellent scientific training in an important area of diabetes research, the latest laboratory and computing skills, outstanding resources, and with world leading scientists as supervisors. They cover various aspects of diabetes research, including: autoimmunity in the pancreas; neuro-endocrinology to understand the relationship between the brain, mental health and the endocrine system; gene regulation in the placenta and fetal development of the pancreas; rare genetic forms of diabetes; muscle physiology; and the use of electronic medical records to understand disease causes, treatments and progression. Students will learn a wide range of state-of-the-art techniques, which could include CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, DNA methylation, DNA sequence analysis, muscle insulin sensitivity physiology, brain electrophysiology, medical statistics, R for statistics and data visualisation and programming in python, data science including machine learning, in vivo metabolic phenotype skills and cell biology including 3D stem cell culture.
Students will have access to outstanding resources, including cohorts of >5000 patients with rare defects in insulin secretion, a world leading collection of samples for study of pancreas pathology, resources of electronic medical records and biobanks from millions of people and unique resources for studying human development of the pancreas and brain.