Almost two million human lives are lost to fungal infections each year, but fungi also produce many clinically important drugs, such as statins to treat cardiovascular diseases and antimicrobials such as penicillin. This is because fungi contain many biosynthetic gene clusters involved in the production of bioactive secondary metabolites. Some of these metabolites can block the activity of the immune system, whilst others are important in industry, medicine, and agriculture. Therefore, it is critical we understand how production of these metabolites are regulated so we can exploit this process to our advantage.
Most of us are aware of the iconic DNA double-helix, but DNA can take many forms. One of which is the unusual four-stranded DNA structure called a G-quadruplex. There is increasing evidence that G-quadruplexes can regulate fundamental biological processes such as gene expression. We hypothesise that we can target G-quadruplexes to either increase the production of clinically relevant secondary metabolites or decrease the production of harmful metabolites. Alternatively, they may be involved in the activation of silent gene clusters and the generation of previously uncharacterised metabolites.
During this 3-year PhD studentship funded by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Faculty of Science, you will identify a completely new mechanism underlying the regulation of secondary metabolism in pathogenic fungi. You will receive training in a wide variety of techniques that will make you eminently employable in academia and industry. These include circular dichroism, NMR, fluorescent microscopy, RNA-seq, HPLC, mass spectrometry, microbial and human cell culture, and methods to probe host-microbe interactions. The studentship will be based at UEA, but also includes training at the Earlham Institute, John Innes Centre, and University College London.
For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Stefan Bidula at [email protected] .
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Funding Details
This PhD studentship is funded for 3 years by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Faculty of Science. Applications are open, and funding is available, to UK applicants only. Funding comprises home tuition fees and an annual stipend (£17,668 in 22/23) for a maximum of 36 months