North East England Doctoral Landscape (NEEDL)

North East England Doctoral Landscape (NEEDL) is a BBSRC-funded strategic Partnership in Biosciences doctoral training between four universities based in the North East of England, Durham University, Newcastle University, Northumbria University and Teesside University.

The Partnership is offering up to 20 four-year BBSRC-funded PhD studentships starting in October 2025. A wide range of projects across the Partnership are available for application under the broad themes of ‘Engineering Biology, Computational Biology and Industrial Biotechnology’, ‘Structural Biology, Chemical Biology and Anti Microbial Drug Discovery’, ‘Microbes, Microbiomes and Host-Microbe Interactions’, ‘Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition’ and ‘Regenerative Biology, Neuroscience and Aging’.

Please see below our current projects which are available for October 2025 entry. For more information and details on how to apply, please visit the NEEDL website.

The deadline for applications is 12 noon (GMT) Monday 31st March 2025.

 

Leveraging AI for Forecasting Antimicrobial Resistance Cassette Kinetics in Urban Water Systems (LAMARCK-AI)

Supervisor: Dr Marcos Quintela-Baluja

 

New enzymes for carbon capture from Loki’s Castle

Supervisor: Prof Ehmke Pohl

 

Synthetic knottins as new sources of insecticides

Supervisor: Dr Adam Bentham

 

Single-molecule and genomic studies of DNA gyrase – a molecular machine and drug target that supercoils DNA

Supervisor: Dr Aakash Basu

 

Novel biocatalysts for amide and peptide bond synthesis

Supervisor: Dr Christian Schnepel

 

Temperature-Driven Cell Fate regulation in plants

Supervisor: Dr Miguel de Lucas

 

Caging Circles: Engineering Medically Useful Cyclic Peptides into Artificial Programmable Protein Cages

Supervisor: Prof Jonathan Heddle

 

Metals, Microbes, and Mathematics: Understanding Coexistence with Toxic Nutrients

Supervisor: Dr Denis Patterson

 

Studying NAT10-mediated acetylation mechanism in ageing process using biochemical and structural investigations

Supervisor: Dr Ting-Yu Lin

 

How does cell signalling protect and regulate cytokinesis?

Supervisor: Dr Tim Davies

 

Deciphering the mechanisms behind the evolution of extreme nitrogen uptake in ant-farmed plants

Supervisor: Prof Guillaume Chomicki

 

Molecular profiling of Drosophila memory engrams

Supervisor: Dr Vincent Croset

 

Ribosomal kinase S6 activity at the interface of plant growth and stress signalling network

Supervisor: Dr Uli Bechtold

 

Group behaviour of juvenile and adult mosquitoes

Supervisor: Dr Lena Riabinina

 

Investigation of genes regulating the intercalary meristem in barley

Supervisor: Dr Peter Etchells

 

SUMO code: deciphering how SUMOylation enables plants to adapt to their environment

Supervisor: Prof Ari Sadanandom

 

AI-guided rational design of ssGlo: a family of protein-based DNA biosensors for quantifying DNA editing and repair

Supervisor: Dr Liz Morris