PhD Studentship: Functional genomic approaches to convergent mechanisms in chromatinopathies

Overview

A full-time, fixed-term PhD studentship is available at the University of Exeter within the Department of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences. The project focuses on functional genomic approaches to investigate convergent mechanisms in chromatinopathies, a group of rare genetic disorders caused by variants in genes encoding chromatin remodelling factors. These conditions frequently feature neurodevelopmental traits such as developmental delay, intellectual disability, and autism, for which treatments are currently lacking.

The research addresses the hypothesis that different chromatinopathies share overlapping pathways, meaning a single drug could potentially treat multiple conditions. The student will explore transcriptomic and epigenomic changes in the brain associated with three prioritised chromatinopathies, analyse how these changes respond to treatment, and evaluate the rescue of behavioural phenotypes using mouse models.

What you get

The studentship provides funding that covers Home tuition fees and includes a Doctoral Stipend for a duration of up to four years.

Requirements

Applicants will engage in a methodology involving next-generation sequencing approaches, including Parse snRNAseq, bulk RNA-seq, and CUT&Tag-seq, to examine epigenomic and transcriptomic effects in mouse frontal cortex samples. The work also encompasses mouse behavioural assessments, such as tests for anxiety, activity, repetitive behaviours, social interactions, motor function, and learning and memory. Additionally, the student will work alongside an expert post-doctoral scientist and utilize pre-collected sequencing data as well as available data from human neurons derived from patient-controlled induced pluripotent stem cells.

Key dates

The closing date for applications is 2027-01-05.