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A leading research collaboration seeks a motivated PhD candidate to advance nematode toxicity testing aimed at ecological health assessments. This position includes training opportunities with industry partners and focuses on multi-strain, multi-species studies that align with sustainable environmental standards.
Project Description
This project aims to establish a high-throughput, multi-strain, multi-species nematode-based toxicity testing system to assess the environmental health impact of agrochemicals and pollutants. The research questions are divided into two key themes:
Standardization:
Scalability and Reproducibility – How can a high-throughput nematode-based system be optimized to provide scalable and reproducible chemical toxicity screening across multiple species?
Regulatory Integration – How well do toxicity responses in nematodes correlate with established environmental risk assessment metrics and regulatory frameworks?
Discovery:
This is part of a larger project, so the PhD student will not address the entire set of research questions. Instead, they will focus on laying the foundation for Themes 1–4. The student will culture multiple species and strains, train with collaborating experts, and contribute to developing a system for efficiently culturing, exposing, and phenotyping nematodes using imaging systems and computational pipelines. Simultaneously, they will use molecular tools, including transcriptomics, CRISPR, and comparative genomics, to investigate how different neuroactive chemicals affect development, behaviour, and reproduction across species and strains, as well as how these outcomes vary based on underlying genetic differences.
The standardisation outcomes will include the development of a competitive high throughput testing system capable of rapidly phenotyping nematodes at the multi-species, multi-strain level. This system could be integrated into regulatory frameworks or commercialised with the partner organisation.
The discovery outcomes will focus on identifying the molecular and mechanistic drivers of variation in toxicity outcomes and understanding how these factors scale across species, including comparisons between nematodes and other toxicology models, including humans. Additionally, this knowledge could inform predictions about the impacts of chemicals on nematodes as primary biomass converters in soil agroecosystems.
Training & Collaboration:
Apply here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/centres-institutes/environmental-research-and-justice/phds
Required Qualifications:
Preferred Qualifications:
Funding Notes
UK ("Home") students: Successful applicants will receive substantial financial support, including a stipend matched to UKRI rates (25/26: £20,780), fee waivers (25/26: £5,006), and generous project consumables, travel and subsistence allowance.
International ("Overseas") students: Successful applicants may apply and receive funding at the equivalent rate of UK students, however the student will be responsible for payment of the outstanding fee balance.