GlaxoSmithKline-funded PhD studentship: Immune Ageing (Fixed Term)

Applications are invited for fully funded, four-year PhD studentships based at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID), within the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. The studentship programme is part of CG-AGE, a collaborative project between the Department of Medicine and GlaxoSmithKline, focused on the mechanisms and phenotypes of immune ageing.

Project

The UK population is getting older, with nearly 1 in 5 individuals over the age of 60 and over half a million aged 90 or older (2021 Census). This is important, because ageing is strongly associated with altered immune function, leading to increased susceptibility to infectious and inflammatory diseases, which are major contributors to morbidity and mortality in older adults. A major limitation to our understanding of human immune age has been a reliance on analysis of few immune traits in comparatively small cohorts with limited representation of the oldest individuals. To overcome this, we have integrated multiple datasets to identify and validate latent age-related trajectories, capturing quantitative traits reflecting immune exposure and response, and uncovering highly stereotyped and non-linear trajectories of immune ageing. Here, we propose to build on our existing work to quantify multiple immune age metrics in a longitudinal population of ageing individuals undergoing annual immune challenge in the form of vaccination. We will relate these immune age metrics to a variety of outcomes including correlates of vaccine protection and clinical outcomes with the aim of inferring mechanistic processes that drive immune ageing. Students will use multi-omic single cell methods to identify cell subpopulations associated with both chronological and immunological ageing (defined by a range of different ageing metrics), their associated differentiation trajectories and multi-omic characteristics and will relate these to the magnitude, breadth and efficacy of vaccine-induced protection. These data will deeply characterise the aged immune response, explore the mechanism of changes occurring and support development of experimental medicine interventions to modulate aged immunity.

The successful candidates will each undertake a four-year research project with the overall aims of (1) characterising aged immune responses, (2) exploring how they change longitudinally in an ageing population, and (3) investigating how this knowledge can be exploited to better modulate aged immunity. Depending on the specific interests of the student, individual projects may include exploitation of computational machine learning approaches in concert with wet-lab experiments on aged samples. Wet-lab experiments will include generation of multi-omic single cell datasets alongside immune organoid models, while dry-lab work will seek to interpret age-related changes and their impact on immunity using advances in the capabilities of machine learning/AI techniques.

Students will be a core part of CG-AGE, a five-year collaboration between the University of Cambridge and GSK, led by Prof. Eoin McKinney, that seeks to better understand immune ageing and how to modulate it. Individual studentships may have (co)supervision from investigators affiliated with the CG-AGE programme.

PhD programme

The studentships are 4 years in length, starting from October 2027, and will include an optional 6-month sabbatical period to be spent in another laboratory either in Cambridge or in GSK to gain additional skills and knowledge (this may optionally include a sabbatical GSK placement). Studentships include fees and maintenance for students eligible for Home fee status. For eligibility please check:

https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/finance/fees/what-my-fee-status.

The programme will include several studentships and aims to equip the next generation of scientists with an in depth understanding of the molecular and cellular basis underlying immune ageing together with how that intersects with the pathogenesis of immune and infectious disorders. Students will have access to training in scientific communication, critical thinking, career development, and other transferrable skills through:

-One-to-one supervision: you will receive direct guidance from your supervisors and attend weekly journal clubs.

-Presentations: give one poster presentation per year to the Department, and present your research at our seminar series and annual symposia.

-Networking: hear from recent alumni and non-academic representatives on their career paths.

-Attend Principal Investigator-led core topic sessions covering fundamental techniques (bioinformatics, microscopy, flow cytometry, data analysis, and statistics), cutting-edge technologies (genetic screens, new proteomic approaches, and mathematical modelling) and key transferable skills (communication, scientific writing, public engagement, and ethics).

Students will submit a thesis of no more than 60,000 words within five years of commencing study in the programme.

Candidate

We are looking for highly motivated, enthusiastic and industrious individuals who can work both independently and within a team. The studentships would be suitable for students with a background in either molecular biology or computational biology/informatics. Thorough training will be provided in both fields and will be adapted depending on the candidate's previous experience. This PhD offers the unique opportunity to work at the interface of basic science and drug discovery in both academic and industry settings, and by the end of the studentship you will have gained a broad range of key experimental, computational and transferable skills that will serve as a springboard for a successful research career.

Applicants should have or should expect to obtain a minimum of a UK 2:1 Honours Degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject and should be passionate about discovering new biology with the goal of improving human health.

To be appointed applicants must meet the minimum entry criteria which can be found at: https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/directory/cvmdpdmed

Environment

CG-AGE is led by Professor Eoin McKinney and students will be closely aligned with work taking place across the CG-AGE programme. Professor Eoin McKinney is the Versus Arthritis Professor of Clinical Autoimmunity, Director of Studies for Pembroke College and faculty of the Cambridge Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (CCAIM) and a Principal Investigator based in the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infections Disease (https://www.citiid.cam.ac.uk/), situated within the Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre at the heart of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. The McKinney Lab are interested in exploring the phenotype and mechanism of autoinflammatory disease and how that understanding can be used to develop novel approaches for immunomodulation.
As a graduate student at the University of Cambridge, you will have access to a wide range of training opportunities and benefit from close supervision provided by a primary and secondary PhD supervisor from amongst affiliated CG-AGE investigators as well as a personal mentor. You will also become a member of one of the 31 Cambridge Colleges, through which you will have access to accommodation and a wide variety of student clubs, societies and activities.

Funding

The position is fully funded. Beginning on 1st October 2027, you will receive an annual stipend and your University tuition fees (at the home rate) will be fully covered for four years. Applications are welcomed from overseas students who are able to cover the additional costs associated with international student fees through scholarships or other funding schemes, such as the Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust (https://www.cambrid