PhD Studentship – Single-Cell Multi-Omics of Enhancer Function in Cardiovascular Development

[4-year Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership PhD CASE studentship with Inspiralis Limited. Includes payment of tuition fees, £20,780 annual stipend, and £5,000 per annum Research Training Support Grant.] This fully funded PhD studentship at the University of East Anglia offers an exciting opportunity to investigate how enhancers orchestrate cardiovascular fate using single-cell multi-omics approaches. The project focuses on the earliest stages of vertebrate cardiovascular development, exploring how cardiac and hematoendothelial progenitor cells diverge from a common origin in the lateral plate mesoderm. While key transcription factors are known, the role of non-coding DNA enhancers in regulating gene expression during heart and vessel formation remains less understood. Mutations in these elements are increasingly linked to congenital heart and vascular defects, but their identification and functional validation in the embryo is challenging. The successful candidate will apply advanced single-cell technologies, including scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq, to map the enhancer landscape in the chick embryo, a model system well-suited for imaging and manipulation. Training will be provided in bioinformatics to integrate gene expression and chromatin accessibility data, predict active enhancers, reconstruct gene regulatory networks, and identify conserved elements. Experimental work will include molecular cloning of candidate enhancers into fluorescent reporter constructs for live imaging and CRISPR-based perturbations to test enhancer function in vivo. The project is supervised by a collaborative team: Dr Andrea Munsterberg and Dr Gi Fay Mok at UEA, and Dr Iain Macaulay and Dr Wilfried Haerty at the Earlham Institute. Students will gain expertise in developmental biology, molecular genetics, imaging, and computational biology, and join a vibrant research community through the Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Programme (NRPDTP). The programme includes a three-month professional internship placement (PIPS) and comprehensive training in research and professional skills. Funding covers tuition fees, a £20,780 annual stipend, and a £5,000 per annum research training support grant. Applicants should have at least a UK 2:1 Honours degree (or equivalent) and meet English language requirements (IELTS 6.5 overall, 6 in each category). The position is full-time, starting October 2026. Applications close on 2 December 2026, with interviews scheduled for early February 2026. For more information, contact the supervisors or visit the NRPDTP website.