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4 year fully-funded PhD studentship – stem cells and tissue regeneration

Posted by , on 23 March 2022

Location: Bristol, UK

Closing Date: 28 April 2022

 

We are seeking an outstanding PhD student to study stem cell-mediated tissue regeneration in our lab at the University of Bristol. See project description below. 5 fully-funded International 4-year PhD studentships are available this year. Apply by April 28. Non-UK candidates only. Start date: September 2022.

 

Please get in touch with Dr. Patel about your application. Please send your motivation letter, CV, transcripts and contact information for 2-3 references to Dr. Patel at p.patel@bristol.ac.uk.

 

Project description:

Regulation of intestinal regeneration by reactive oxygen species

 

Epithelial tissues found in our skin, lungs or gut are under constant environmental stress. When cells within these tissues are damaged or lost, they are replenished by stem cells. Thus, a tissue’s ability to sense stress and stimulate stem cell proliferation is vital to maintain its integrity and prevent tissue dysfunction, degeneration, inflammation and disease. Our lab’s goal is to determine how stress signalling promotes tissue renewal and regeneration.

 

To better understand this process, we use the adult Drosophila (fruit fly) intestine, which has many similarities to our own. Like our own intestine, the fly intestine is maintained by intestinal stem cells (ISCs) that divide to produce two main cell types: absorptive enterocytes and secretory enteroendocrine cells. Upon injury, the fly intestine has remarkable regenerative capacity as ISCs can rapidly proliferate to replace damaged or lost cells (Zhang and Edgar, 2022).

 

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) promote tissue regeneration in many contexts, but how they do this is not fully understood. Upon damage, fly intestines produce ROS that promote ISC-mediated regeneration. This is partly achieved by activating stress signalling in damaged enterocytes, which stimulates their production of ISC mitogens (Patel et al., 2019).

 

During this project, you will further determine molecular mechanisms underpinning ROS-mediated fly intestinal regeneration using genetics, immunostaining, microscopy, image analysis and transcriptomics. Your work will impact our understanding of regeneration and may help develop therapies for inflammatory diseases, cancer, and regenerative medicine.

 

For more information about our lab and our research, please visit www.gutstresslab.org.

 

References

 

Patel P.H., Pénalva C., Kardorff M., Roca M., Pavlović B., Thiel A., Teleman A.A. and Edgar B.A. (2019). Damage sensing by a Nox-Ask1-MKK3-p38 signaling pathway mediates regeneration in the Drosophila adult midgut. Nature Communications 10:4365.

doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12336-w

 

Zhang P. and Edgar B.A. (2022). Insect Gut Regeneration. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 14(2):a040915. doi:10.1101/cshperspect.a040915

Closing Date: 28 April 2022

Duration: Fixed term

Minimum qualifications: Bachelors

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