University of St Andrews

Project description

Many neurological conditions, including dementia, afflict the aging population. Many of these disorders have a genetic component. A major difficulty in studying neurological conditions is that symptoms occur in cells of the nervous system that cannot be taken from living patients, so the fundamental cellular defects responsible cannot be studied directly. Over the past few years, there have been major advances in the field of induced pluripotency. Adult cells, usually fibroblasts, can be reprogrammed to a stem cell-like state from which they can be directed to differentiate into a number of different cell types, including neurons. While these techniques are exciting from a research and translational perspective, they involve both genetic manipulation of the cell lines and extensive manipulation in vitro.

More recently experiments have demonstrated that adult fibroblasts can be directly reprogrammed into neurons by expressing a small number of transcription factors. This technology avoids extensive in vitro manipulation, but still uses infection with multiple viral vectors with the potential to cause deleterious rearrangement of cellular DNA. We propose to refine this technology to investigate the potential for reprogramming human fibroblasts into neural cells by expressing multiple transcription factors from a single non-viral vector.

Availability

Full PhD (36 months in UK)

Supervisers

• University of St Andrews Supervisor(s):

  Dr Judith Sleeman and Professor Martin Ryan

• Brazilian University Supervisor(s):

  n/a

Additional notes

n/a

Start date

September 2012 or February 2013

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Project description

There is a burgeoning need to understand cellular and sub cellular processes for the onset of disease. Photonics can play a major role- laser light may be used in many guises to image, probe, cut and exert forces on cells and molecules. Each task needs different types of laser that may be combined to create a multimodal workstation in the area of biophotonics. This project will look at various cells types and their response to the chemical environment. State of the art, complementary laser/microscope systems in St Andrews and Campinas will be used to gain new insights into cell mechanics and disease.

Availability

Co-tutelle PhD (12 months UK, 24 in Brazil)

Supervisers

• University of St Andrews Supervisor(s):

  Professor K. Dholakia, School of Physics and Astronomy

• Brazilian University Supervisor(s):

  Prof. Carlos Lenz César, CePOF, Instituto de Física, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

Additional notes

Professor Kishan Dholakia has informal links with this Brazilian group at University of Campinas.

Start date

September 2012 or February 2013

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