PhD Studentship : Development of Fluxomics in Coxiella Burnetii to Identify the Metabolic Requirements for its Intracellular Survival and Replication in the Host (CASE), BBSRC SWBio DTP PhD Studentship 2025 Entry

About:

The BBSRC-funded SWBio DTP involves a partnership of world-renown universities, research institutes and industry, based mainly across the South West and Wales.

This partnership has established international, national and regional scientific networks, and widely recognised research excellence and facilities.

We aim to provide you with outstanding interdisciplinary bioscience research training, underpinned by transformative technologies.

Project Description

Coxiella Burnetii is an obligate intracellular pathogen that causes q-fever in humans, referred to as a neglected zoonotic disease that can lead to serious illness and death it not diagnosed and treated on time. C. Burnetii is an understudied pathogen; the metabolism of the pathogen in vitro and in the host remains rudimentary. The limited knowledge on this pathogen’s microbiology and metabolism hinders development of new drugs and treatments. This PhD studentship will develop cutting-edge fluxomic techniques to study the metabolism of the pathogen. The aims include: (i) construction of genome scale metabolic network of C. Burnetii (ii) in vitro growth phenotype assessment using in silico genome scale modelling and drug target predictions (iii) flux spectral analysis to map which host metabolites are used by the pathogen during growth in human host cells and Galleria Mellonella  as an ex vivo model. The outcomes of this project will provide (i) an improved understanding of which central carbon and nitrogen metabolic fluxes are important to sustain growth of C. Burnetii (ii) identification of important intracellular nutrients for C. Burnetii in the host (iii) identification of vulnerable drug targets.

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