Phd Studentship

4 weeks ago


Birmingham, United Kingdom Aston University Full time

**PhD Studentship (3 years) Brain on “FIRE” - investigating the role of microglia in epilepsy**

**Department**:College of Health and Life Sciences

**Contract Type**:Fixed Term

**Basis**:Full Time

**Closing Date: 31**st** July 2023 [11.59pm GMT]**

**Supervisory Team**:Supervisory team: Dr Sukhvir Wright, PI (BCH and Aston); Professor Gavin Woodhall, Associate Supervisor (Aston); Dr Clare Pridans, External Supervisor (University of Edinburgh); Dr Manoj Upadhya, Associate Supervisor (Aston)

**Project Reference**: HLS_Wright_Woodhall

Applications are invited for a three-year Postgraduate studentship, supported by Aston University’s Institute of Health and Neuroscience and Birmingham City Hospital, to be undertaken at Aston University.

**The position is available to start in October 2023.**

**Financial Support**

**Background to the Project**

References: 1 Gaspard, N., et al. New-onset refractory status epilepticus: Etiology, clinical features, and outcome. Neurology 85, 1604-1613 (2015). 2 Dale, R. C., et al. Utility and safety of rituximab in pediatric autoimmune and inflammatory CNS disease. Neurology 83, 142-150 (2014). 3 Paolicelli, R. C., et al. Synaptic pruning by microglia is necessary for normal brain development. Science 333, 1456-1458 (2011). 4 Schafer, D. P., et al. The "quad-partite" synapse: microglia-synapse interactions in the developing and mature CNS. Glia 61, 24-36 (2013). 5 Schafer, D. P., et al. Microglia sculpt postnatal neural circuits in an activity and complement-dependent manner. Neuron 74, 691-705 (2012).6 Badimon, A., et al. Negative feedback control of neuronal activity by microglia. Nature 586, 417-423 (2020). 7 Wu, W., et al. Microglial depletion aggravates the severity of acute and chronic seizures in mice. Brain Behav Immun 89, 245-255 (2020). 8 Modebadze, T., et al. A Low Mortality, High Morbidity Reduced Intensity Status Epilepticus (RISE) Model of Epilepsy and Epileptogenesis in the Rat. PLoS One 11, e0147265 (2016). 9 Wright SK, et al. Multimodal electrophysiological analyses reveal that reduced synaptic excitatory neurotransmission underlies seizures in a model of NMDAR antibody-mediated encephalitis. Commun Biol. 2021 Sep 20;4(1):1106. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02635-8

**Person Specification**

**Contact information**
- A copy of your current CV
- Copies of your academic qualifications for your Bachelor degree, and Masters degree (if studied); this should include both certificates and transcripts, and must be translated in to English
- A research proposal statement*
- A personal statement
- Two academic references
- Proof of your English Language proficiency

**Please include the supervisor’s name, project title and project reference in your Personal Statement.


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