PhD Opportunities in Biophysics in United Kingdom

The University of Bristol is accepting applications for a funded PhD investigating how free fatty acids regulate beta-coronavirus infection. Co-supervised by Christiane Berger-Schaffitzel, Andrew Davidson, Harriet Mears and Paul Verkade, the project will examine how free fatty acids influence coronavirus infection, replication and evolution. It builds on the discovery of a conserved fatty acid-binding pocket in the coronavirus spike protein. The research combines structural biology, electron cry...

[PhD studentship funded by BBSRC through the Midlands Integrated Biosciences Training Partnership, in partnership with the University of Warwick, University of Birmingham, Aston University, Harper Adams University, Coventry University, and the University of Leicester.] PhD studentship at the University of Birmingham on understanding and modulating protein-protein interactions (PPIs) involving intrinsically disordered regions . The project is designed to develop new approaches for targeting chall...

[4-year Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership PhD studentship. Includes payment of tuition fees, a stipend of £21,805 for 2026/27, and a Research Training Support Grant of £5,000 per year.] PhD studentship at the University of East Anglia on cracking the carbohydrate code : how carbohydrate-binding modules control starch digestion. This project sits at the intersection of food science, carbohydrate biochemistry, biophysics, and advanced spectroscopy. It addresses a majo...

[Studentship provides full fees and a stipend of £21,805 per annum for 2026/7; funded by EPSRC.] University of Exeter PhD studentship in In Silico Directed Evolution of Biological Qubits: Rational Design of Nanoscale Quantum Transducers . This project sits at the interface of quantum biology, protein engineering, computational chemistry, and AI-driven molecular design. The research aims to move beyond passive fluorescence-based quantum sensing toward active biological transduction , where geneti...

PhD opportunity in Engineering Biology at the University of Bristol , offered in collaboration with Prof Dek Woolfson through the SWBio DTP . The project is titled Engineering co-translational protein assembly using de novo designed proteins (Project ID: 3544). It asks how proteins assemble while being synthesised on the ribosome, building on advances in protein structure prediction such as AlphaFold and focusing on the folding and assembly of de novo designed coiled-coil proteins during transla...

[Fees plus a stipend of £21,805 per annum for 2026/7; funded by EPSRC.] PhD Studentship at the University of Exeter in the Physics department on an ambitious project to build a polarisation-resolved nonlinear microscope with true 3D vectorial control of the focal field. This studentship is aimed at a candidate interested in advanced optical instrumentation, structured light, nonlinear microscopy, and the physics of biological tissue. The project will focus on polarisation-resolved second-harmoni...

Coming soon at the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, The University of Leeds: two postdoctoral positions and one PhD position will soon be advertised. The research themes mentioned are outer membrane protein assembly mechanisms and cryoEM of amyloid. One postdoc and one PhD student will be linked to outer membrane protein assembly mechanisms, while one postdoc will focus on cryoEM of amyloid. The post is shared by Sheena Radford, Astbury Professor of Biophysics at The University o...

PhD opportunity at Aston University in cell membrane engineering for biotechnology , with a focus on biophysics , biochemistry , microbial fermentations , and industrial biotechnology . The project aims to alter microbial cell membranes to improve tolerance to bioprocessing stresses and increase product yields in industrially relevant microorganisms. The research combines in vitro assays , microbial cell culture , omics technologies , genetic engineering , and iterative strain design-build cycle...

Joshua Lawrence is starting a new group at the University of Warwick School of Life Sciences next September and is advertising two funded PhD opportunities . The lab will be interdisciplinary, combining synthetic biology , electrochemistry , and biophysical methods to map the bioenergetic pathways of microorganisms and engineer them for sustainable biotechnologies. The projects are collaborative with Julie Macpherson and Joseph Beckwith in the Department of Chemistry . Funding is through the Mid...