Most of us know someone who suffers from chronic pain – be it as a result of arthritis, a trapped nerve or a back injury. At least 1 in 5 people are affected by the condition, with increasing incidence in aging populations.
One reason for why people experience chronic pain is because their afferent sensory neurons fire much more than they ordinarily would. It is believed that abnormal sodium channel function is very important in bringing about this ectopic activity.
For your PhD, we would like you to test this. We will train you to perform electrophysiological experiments, where you will block different sodium channels pharmacologically and measure the consequences on neuronal activity.
We would also like you to try and disrupt sodium channel function in sensory neurons using gene editing with CRISPR/Cas9 delivered in a viral vector. For this, we will teach you molecular biology techniques, such as cloning, RNA extraction, qRT-PCR, and in situ.
If successful, at the end of your PhD, you will have developed a way to interfere with abnormal sodium channel activity in a manner that might one day be applied to help treat chronic pain in patients.
Start date: 1st February 2019
Entry requirements: Applicants should have a Bachelor’s degree with 2:1 honours in a subject relevant to the proposed project (e.g. Neuroscience, Molecular Biology, Physiology, Biology).
A research-based MSc degree is not necessary, but will be viewed favourably.
A 2:2 degree may be considered only where applicants also offer a Masters with Merit.
Award types and eligibility: This award is sponsored by a pharmaceutical partner.
Only applicants eligible for Home/EU fees may apply.This funding is not available to Overseas fee status students.
The studentship will cover tuition fees, stipend and consumables.
For information on the application process, please vist: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/study/prospective-students/programmes-of-study/pgr/fundedresearchopportunities/fd-sb-wcard-2018.aspx
Please do not hesitate to contact us for discussion, by emailing franziska.denk@kcl.ac.uk.
franziska.denk@kcl.ac.uk
