Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

The aim of the research is to improve understanding of how biological cells respond to changes in their environment. Scientists refer to these changes as ‘signals‘ received by the cells. Often the response involves fluctuations in the calcium level inside the cell and the turning on or off of some of the cell‘s genes. When these processes over- or under-react, health problems often occur such as neurodegeneration and many cancers. However, the detailed workings of these cell signalling mechanisms are often not well understood, even in healthy cells. By using experiments on such cells in which signals are turned on artificially and large amounts of data recording the subsequent changes inside the cells are collected, scientists can develop mathematical models that describe and predict cellular responses. These responses usually involve networks of many interacting molecules and so finding good models is challenging science. The understanding gained can be used in future to illuminate the causes of disease and to design treatments. The scientists involved will be an interdisciplinary team at the University of Cambridge made up of several mathematical statisticians, a pharmacologist and a developmental biologist. The team will be coordinated by Dr Clive Bowsher of the Statistical Laboratory.

The synthesis of a-arylated carbonyl moieties is important because they are wide-spread throughout bio-active pharmaceuticals, including HIV and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Current methods to install this structure require building-blocks with pre-installed functionality, which increases the cost and waste generated. Methods that employ unfunctionalised substrates is an unsolved problem. By exploiting an electrochemical oxidation strategy, we will develop new a-arylation methods that use unfunctionalised substrates, which will be more inexpensive, produce less waste and expand the scope of previous protocols. By increasing the efficiency, availability of suitable substrates and widening the scope of products from this reaction, the chemical space- from which the discovery of drugs rely- can be enhanced. This project is timely, because electrochemical redox processes are becoming increasingly popular in industry and academia as they are highly sustainable and selective.

Chemistry at the aerosol-air interface may be fundamentally different to the chemistry occurring in the bulk. However, vanishingly few approaches exist to measure chemical composition at the aerosol-air interface. Development of a completely novel approach to study this interface will open up opportunities to investigate the unique chemistry inherent in aerosols.

A corneal transplant (replacing the window of the eye) is often needed to restore sight to a damaged or diseased eye. Sadly about one quarter of transplants are rejected by the white cells of our immune system because they see the transplant as foreign. To learn more about how this happens we need models that closely resemble man. Minipigs could be very valuable in two ways. First, they are similar in size to humans. We therefore expect rejection (involving clouding of the cornea) to resemble human rejection very closely. Second, minipigs are partially inbred, which allows investigation of the immune response in ways that are impossible in very genetically diverse human patients. During the lifetime of the grant we will test how closely rejection in the minipig resembles human rejection and develop methods of measuring immunity that could be used in the clinic to prevent rejection. If the minipig proves to be a good model, we can later use it to test new treatments, particularly gene therapy. As we are able to keep donor corneas in tissue culture for up to 30 days, genes to combat possible future rejection can be readily introduced into the cornea before the operation.