News

The Dunn School is proud to support this initiative, and this year 6 projects are available in our department:

Project Title: Mechanisms of protein degradation

Supervisor: Professor Pedro Carvalho

Accumulation of misfolded proteins and aberrant protein aggregates are hallmarks of a wide range of pathologies such as neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. Under normal conditions, these potentially toxic protein species are kept at low levels due to a variety of quality control mechanisms that detect and selectively promote their degradation. Our lab investigates these protein quality control processes with a particular focus on ER-associated degradation (ERAD), that looks after membrane and secreted proteins.

Project Title: How cells build complicated protein machines

Supervisor:Professor Jordan Raff

Centrosomes are complicated protein machines that play an important part in organising eukaryotic cells. If human cells lose their centrosome, they usually kill themselves, and centrosome dysfunction has been linked to a plethora of human diseases – including cancer and microcephaly. Almost all cells are born with a single centrosome that grows and divides; when the cell divides, each daughter inherits one centrosome and the cycle starts again.

Project Title: Developing a platform to study antigen-specific naïve T cells

Supervisor: Professor Omer Dushek

T cells are important white blood cells that orchestrate immune responses. They use specialised receptors, called T cell receptors (TCRs), to recognise specific molecular signatures on these targets. Understanding how T cells make these recognition decisions is crucial for improving vaccines and immunotherapies.

Project Title: Processing of Alzheimer’s-associated protein aggregates by microglia

Supervisor: Professor Sally Cowley

Microglia are strongly implicated in the progression of Alzheimer’s, and neuroinflammation is also a feature of other neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s and ALS. We have developed a genetically tractable system for differentiating authentic human microglia from induced Pluripotent Stem cells, which is used widely to investigate disease pathogenesis and identify new therapeutic targets.

Project Title: Investigating how molecular motors transport cargoes in cells using genome editing and microscopy

Supervisor: Dr Anthony Roberts

The goal of this project is to investigate how motor proteins transport cargo in eukaryotic cells, while obtaining training and experience in a variety of molecular and cell biology techniques. Our research group specialises in the motor proteins kinesin and dynein, which use ATP hydrolysis to move along microtubules. These motors transport a range of macromolecular cargo in diverse physiological processes, underscored by the severe human disorders that arise from their dysfunction.

Project Title: Membrane proteins and signalling in health and disease

Supervisor: Professor Matthew Freeman

We study membrane proteins and how they control signalling and cellular responses to stress. These processes are implicated in multiple human diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration, inflammation and infection so, although we mostly do discovery science, our work has wide potential medical relevance, and we are also interested in the translational opportunities.

The deadline for applications is the 18^th of February, and full application details can be found on the programme page. More information about all 6 projects can be found on the UNIQplus projects page under the heading ‘Pathology’