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Fully-funded PhD projects

Apply for our fully-funded PhD projects in subjects including chemistry, biology, computer science, and physics.

PhD opportunities for science graduates

We are now advertising five fully-funded PhD projects. The deadline for application is Wednesday 06 March 2024. Below you will find a link to further information about our application process, our application portal and mailing list, should you wish to be notified about future PhD opportunities. You can also view the recording of this year's Application Workshop, where we heard from our Academic Lead for Recruitment, Head of Research Degree Programmes and Researcher Development Manager. We also had advice and guidance from the University of London Careers Service, and an insight from some of our current PhD students at the ICR.

Stipends

The ICR's current student stipend is £25,000 per year. Studentships awarded by the Cancer Research UK Convergence Science Centre, which is a partnership of the ICR and Imperial College London, instead include a stipend paid at the Cancer Research UK rate of £23,000 per year.

Find out about our application process

View 2023 application workshop recording

Application process flow diagram

Sign up for our mailing list for future opportunities

Apply now

 

Available opportunities and the project archive

You can view details of the projects we are advertising below. Funding for our PhD projects comes from a variety of different sources, including some funded programmes, such as the MRC Doctoral Training Partnership and CRUK Convergence Science Centre. Please note, the advertised funder may change prior to registration. Use the dropdowns to filter by site, subject and deadline, and then click 'Filter' to see relevant projects. If you use a filter and cannot see any results, then there are no projects matching your requirements and should try a different selection of dropdowns.


Site:

Subject:

Deadline:

 

 

Development of automatic plan-of-the-day selection tools for radiation therapy of pelvic cancer

  • Primary Supervisor: Prof Helen McNair
  • Supervisory Team: Dr Shaista Hafeez, Dr Sarah Blackledge, Dr Emma Harris
  • Primary Division and Team: Radiotherapy & Imaging, Translational Therapeutic Radiography
  • Project Area: Physics, Engineering, Computer Science
  • Studentship Funded by: Biomedical Research Centre
  • Studentship Start-Date: October 2024
  • Deadline: 06 March 2024

Project Proposal

Advancing clinical elastography for early, non-invasive imaging assessment of normal tissue toxicity and tumour response

  • Primary Supervisor: Dr Jessica Winfield
  • Supervisory Team: Dr Joshua Shur, Prof Simon Robinson, Prof Jeff Bamber, Dr Emma Harris
  • Primary Division and Team: Radiotherapy & Imaging, Applied Physics in Clinical MRI
  • Project Area: Physics, Engineering
  • Studentship Funded by: Biomedical Research Centre
  • Studentship Start-Date: October 2024
  • Deadline: 06 March 2024

Project Proposal

Late-effects of hypofractionated radiotherapy for breast cancer

  • Primary Supervisor: Prof Amy Berrington
  • Supervisory Team: Prof Montse Garcia-Closas
  • Primary Division and Team: Genetics & Epidemiology, Clinical Cancer Epidemiology
  • Project Area: Maths, Statistics & Epidemiology
  • Studentship Funded by: ICR
  • Studentship Start-Date: October 2024
  • Deadline: 06 March 2024

Project Proposal

Investigating the cytoprotective role of the ectonucleotidase CD38 in immune responses to cancer

  • Primary Supervisor: Dr Erik Wennerberg
  • Supervisory Team: Dr Esther Arwert, Prof Pascal Meier
  • Primary Division and Team: Radiotherapy & Imaging, Radiation-enhanced Immunotherapy
  • Project Area: Biological Sciences
  • Studentship Funded by: ICR
  • Studentship Start-Date: October 2024
  • Deadline: 06 March 2024

Project Proposal

Role of the non-coding genome in the evolution of myeloma

  • Primary Supervisor: Dr Martin Kaiser
  • Supervisory Team: Prof Richard Houlston
  • Primary Division and Team: Genetics & Epidemiology, Cancer Genetics, Myeloma Molecular Therapy
  • Project Area: Biological Sciences, Physics, Engineering, Maths Statistics & Epidemiology, Computer Science
  • Studentship Funded by: ICR
  • Studentship Start-Date: October 2024
  • Deadline: 06 March 2024

Project Proposal

Previous projects 

Resolving the isoform-specific signalling of RSK1 and RSK4 in non-small cell lung cancer through combined artificial intelligence and molecular biology
Dr Anna Barnard

Resolving the isoform-specific signalling of RSK1 and RSK4 in non-small cell lung cancer through combined artificial intelligence and molecular biology
Dr Olivier Pardo

Fluorescent nanoparticle arrays for label-free monitoring of immunotherapy for bladder cancer
Dr Anna Wilkins

Machine and deep learning for improving photoacoustic imaging for CAR T-cell cancer therapy
Professor Jeff Bamber (ICR)/Lucia Florescu (Surrey) 

Investigating the functions of histone acetylation in genome organization and leukemogenesis
Dr Alex Radzisheuskaya

Exploiting intercellular interactions to overcome prostate cancer cell states cooperation and plasticity
Dr Marco Bezzi

Comprehensive multi-omic analyses of “islands of resistance” tumour cells to identify aromatase inhibitor resistant subclones in oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer
Dr Maggie Cheang

Targeting cancer cell dependency on RNA-binding proteins
Dr Paul Clarke

Understanding the mechanisms underpinning therapeutic vulnerability of SWI/SNF deficient cancers
Professor Jessica Downs

Computational genomics and epigenomics to understand metastasis
Professor Trevor Graham

In situ analysis of the TCR repertoire in colorectal cancer
Professor Trevor Graham

Structural and functional studies of the regulation of mRNA splicing by cyclin-dependent kinases
Dr Basil Greber

Development of tankyrase-directed PROTACs as novel scaffolding inhibitors
Professor Sebastian Guettler

Tracking immune cell migration in tumour and normal tissues after combined radiation-drug therapy in Kaede mice
Professor Kevin Harrington

Developing new therapeutic strategies for ALT positive sarcomas
Dr Paul Huang

Integrative spatial proteomic analysis of tumour microenvironment response to therapy in sarcomas
Dr Paul Huang

Modelling and targeting the effects of EGFR on diffusely infiltrating paediatric high-grade gliomas or midline and cerebral regions
Professor Chris Jones/Dr Julia Cockle

Identifying molecular pathways of drug resistance in multiple myeloma
Dr Martin Kaiser

Exploring the differences in the structural characterisation of inhibitor binding between cryo- and room-temperature using multicrystal X-ray crystallography
Dr Rob van Montfort

Evaluation of sub-clonal alterations mediating response and resistance to CDK7 inhibition in therapy resistant triple negative breast cancer
Dr Rachael Natrajan

Identifying therapeutical opportunities within replicative stress response pathways for the development of novel therapeutic strategies to treat cancer
Professor Wojciech Nidzwiedz

Structural investigation of spliceosomes hijacked by oncolytic viruses
Professor Vlad Pena

Innate-immune drivers of cell fate during genotoxic stress
Dr Christian Zierhut

Targeting RNA helicases to suppress aberrant androgen receptor expression and abrogate persistent androgen receptor signalling in lethal prostate cancer
Dr Adam Sharp 

Development of a patient model for real-time MRI guided radiotherapy of pancreas and liver cancer
Professor Uwe Oelfke

Charting colorectal cancer interactomes at structural resolution using chemical crosslinking and mass spectrometry
Professor Jyoti Choudhary

Development of novel dual-target agents to treat neuroblastoma that combine selective protein degradation with synergistic inhibition
Professor Hector Keun (Imperial)

Unravelling the role of cancer associated fibroblasts in cancer evolution and drug resistance using microfluidics
Professor Udai Banerji

An explant-in-chip platform to study immune-cancer cell interactions and enhance tumour immunogenicity ex vivo: a focus on radiotherapy
Professor Darryl Overby (Imperial)

Deciphering the metabolic determinants of bone metastasis in breast cancer
Dr George Poulogiannis

Composition and function of telomeric multi-protein complexes and their regulation by ADP-ribosylation
Dr Sebastian Guettler

Dissecting the prostate cancer-stromal interface
Prof Johann de Bono

Can artificial intelligence predict outcome in patients receiving stereotactic radiosurgery of brain metastasis?
Dr Matthew Blackledge

Single-cell transcriptomics linked to lineage tracing to interrogate the role of “plasticity first” as a positive force driving paediatric cancer evolution
Dr Alejandra Bruna

Exploring strategies for targeting oncogenic beta-catenin
Dr Paul Clarke

Examining the mechanism of chromatin replication and assembly at telomeres
Dr Max Douglas

Generation of mouse models to identify and characterize novel therapeutic targets in chemo refractory AML disease
Professor Kristian Helin

Developing innovative chemical tools to drive lytic cancer cell death
Prof Swen Hoelder

PET imaging to monitor immune cell fitness post-targeted treatment in GBM
Dr Gabriela Kramer-Marek

Understanding PolØ and ATR inhibitor sensitivity in cancer
Prof Chris Lord

Harnessing immunogenic cell death mechanisms to trigger anti tumour immunity
Prof Pascal Meier

Identifying small molecules that bind to the E3-ligase Cbl-b
Dr Gary Newton

Understanding myeloma cell – microenvironment interactions and their role in immunomodulatory drug resistance
Dr Charlotte Pawlyn

Using lattice light sheet microscopy to determine how the Spindle Assembly Checkpoint turns off
Prof Jon Pines

Advanced multiparametric MRI for the characterisation of soft tissue sarcoma and response to neoadjuvant therapy
Dr Simon Robinson

Russell Group
First generation
MSc or BSc

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Applying for a PhD

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Why study at the ICR?