Opportunities in the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine

Supervisor: Professor Jim Spencer
Contact: jim.spencer@bristol.ac.uk

The Spencer group works at the interface of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Chemistry to investigate bacterial antimicrobial resistance, using methods including X-ray crystallography, molecular simulations, multi-omic and confocal imaging.

Current research areas include molecular mechanisms of resistance, in particular to beta-lactam antibiotics, evaluating and establishing the mode of action of new antibacterials, and exploiting bacteria:host interactions in new approaches to diagnosing infection.

There is potential to recruit a CSC student in any of these areas.

Supervisor: Professor Eugenia Piddini
Contact: eugenia.piddini@bristol.ac.uk

Our group investigates the mechanisms that control the colonisation of tissues by cells.

We use an interdisciplinary strategy that combines work with human pluripotent stem cells in culture and work in vivo using Drosophila as model to study cell interactions.

Our lab has discovered several mechanisms that cells use to compete for space and tissue colonisation.

We combine genetics genomic, cell biology, several mics technologies and lots of imaging.

Several projects are available for PhD students in any of the areas that we work on, including cell biological approaches in vitro to understand the mechanisms that allow cells to compete for space, and work in vivo to test the relevance of our discoveries.

Our overall goals is to exploit these mechanisms and pathways to promote tissue colonization in regenerative medicine, or to prevent tumour expansion in cancer.

Supervisor: Dr Bethan Lloyd-Lewis
Contact: bethan.lloyd-lewis@bristol.ac.uk

We investigate the molecular mechanisms underpinning epithelial cell fate outcomes during tissue development and homeostasis, and how perturbation of normal cell and developmental processes contribute to cancer.

We use the mammary gland (breast) as our model system, combining in vivo transgenic mouse models and techniques in cell signalling and stem cell biology with multidimensional ex vivo/in vivo imaging, biophysics, -omics approaches and 3D organotypic culture systems.

Our research integrates data across multiple scales, seeking to define the molecular processes regulating the fate of individual cells and how these link to organ development, function, and oncogenesis.

Supervisor: Dr Deepali Pal
Contact: deepali.pal@bristol.ac.uk

Leukaemia treatment resistance is an unmet clinical need and is driven by cancer cell crosstalk with its surrounding microenvironment (or niche), including the immune niche.

Our aim is to target these leukaemia-niche interactions via safer and kinder treatments, and more recently we are exploring cell therapy approaches.

We develop immune-responsive, precision-oncology-driven human-cell-based organoids, and apply these to explore factors driving leukaemia-microenvironment crosstalk and discover ways to target these.

Moreover, we have been setting up innovative 3D bioprinting infrastructure in our lab at CMM, to enable formation of functional organoids at speed and at scale, towards high throughput combinatorial therapy screens.

Supervisor: Dr Siang Boon Koh
Contact: siangboon.koh@bristol.ac.uk

Our laboratory investigates molecular aberrations in cancer. Through collaborative use of various approaches including omics profiling, imaging and molecular/cellular biology, we study how deregulated biological pathways in cancer cells mediate their proliferation and progression. We leverage these mechanistic insights to identify actionable cancer-specific vulnerabilities.

Our goal is to develop selective, synergistic treatment strategies that enable maximal tumour-cell killing and minimal host toxicity.

Supervisor: Dr Maisem Laabei
Contact: maisem.laabei@bristol.ac.uk

Antimicrobial resistance is a major global health problem. Determining the precise molecular mechanisms governing how antibiotics kill bacteria is paramount to their effective therapeutic use and exploitation in future drug discovery programmes.

We work closely with clinicians and medicinal chemists in our drug discovery projects. Here we use gold standard molecular microbiological approaches combined with proteomics, whole genome sequencing, flow cytometry and fluorescent and confocal microscopy to dissect how antibiotics eliminate bacteria and understand how bacteria evolve to become resistant to antibiotics.

Supervisor: Dr Abdelkader Essafi
Contact: a.essafi@bristol.ac.uk

We are interested in how cells change phenotypically dying cancer progression (aka phenotypic plasticity) with a focus on early dissemination of breast and pancreatic cancer. This builds on our work on gene regulation of tissue specificity and stem cell generation in the embryo.

We use mouse models, organotypic culture and unbiased transcriptome and epigenome tools combined with development of novel computational methods to delineate the complexity of partial EMT as a driver of phenotypic plasticity.

Supervisor: Dr Parthive Patel
Contact: p.patel@bristol.ac.uk

The Patel lab studies how stem cells and other cell types within an organ respond to damage and promote regeneration using the adult Drosophila intestine.

Our studies use Drosophila genetics, dissection and immunostaining of Drosophila tissues, fluorescent microscopy, live imaging and single cell sequencing.

We aim to translate our work to mammals using mouse tissues and organoids and to develop novel therapies for tissue regeneration, inflammatory diseases and cancer.

For more infomation, please visit www.gutstresslab.org.