PhD Studentship in Brain Tumour Biology – Evaluating the role of fatty acid oxidation in the growth of malignant glioma

Postgraduate Opportunities

Newcastle University

Reference code: 04MREA
Closing date: 1 April 2016
Supervisors: Dr E Stoll (primary supervisor), Dr R Maxwell (secondary supervisor)
Sponsor: Research Excellence Academy Studentship, Newcastle University Medical Faculty of Medical Sciences
Duration of the award: September 2016 for 3 years.
Person Specification
You must have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2:1 Honours degree in biomedicine, physiology, neuroscience, oncology or a related area. A further qualification such as an MSc or MRes is advantageous.
This award is available to UK/EU and international applicants.
If English is not your first language, you must have IELTS 7 with at least 6.5 in the written component, or equivalent.
Project Description
Glioma is the most common form of primary adult-onset brain tumour, with approximately 4 cases per 100,000 people per year. Glioma commonly manifests as a grade IV astrocytoma (known as glioblastoma), a highly malignant and invasive tumour, with median patient survival of 12 months from diagnosis and 5% survival two-years post-diagnosis. Current treatments such as surgical resection, radiotherapy, and the chemotherapeutic drug temozolomide only provide modest benefit to patients, increasing survival to 14.6 months post-diagnosis. There is a great need to develop new treatments for these patients. This project aims to further investigate a new pharmaceutical intervention for slowing glioma progression, specifically inhibiting the energy metabolism of tumour cells in a syngeneic mouse model of malignant glioma.
The student will learn mammalian cell culture, surgical techniques, animal husbandry, in vivo MR imaging, histological methods, fluorescence microscopy, and data analysis within a strong translational research environment. The proposed study will make use of our syngeneic mouse model of malignant glioma as a platform both for understanding tumour biology and for testing new treatments for this disease in the context of blinded, placebo-controlled preclinical trials.
For more information please click here

Funding information

Funding applies to:

Open to applicants from a range of countries

Funding notes:

100% of UK/EU tuition fees paid and annual living expenses of £14,296. Successful international candidates will be required to make up the difference between the UK/EU fees and international fees.

Contacts and how to apply

Academic contact:

For further details, please contact:
Dr Elizabeth Stoll
Institute of Neuroscience
Newcastle University
phone: +44 (0)191 208 5954
email: elizabeth.stoll@ncl.ac.uk

Administrative contact and how to apply:

All applicants must apply through the University’s postgraduate application system. To do this please ‘Create a new account’.
Only mandatory fields need to be completed. However, you will need to include the following information:
- insert the programme code 8300F in the programme of study section
- select ‘PhD in the Faculty of Medical Sciences – Neuroscience' as the programme of study
- insert the studentship code 04MREA in the studentship/partnership reference field
attach a covering letter and CV. The covering letter must state the title of the studentship, quote the studentship reference code 04MREA and state how your interests and experience relate to the project
- attach degree transcripts and certificates and, if English is not your first language, a copy of your English language qualifications.

Application deadline:

1 April 2016