Applications for PhDs are invited from talented graduates or final year undergraduates. Candidates should hold, or, expect to gain either;

• A first, or, upper-second class honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject.

• A masters degree in a relevant subject.

Successful candidates will undertake a four-year research training programme under the guidance of a supervisory team of our world-class researchers, starting in October 2020. Students receive an annual stipend, currently £21,000 per annum, as well as having fees and project costs paid for the four-year duration. 

We are currently recruiting for 24 projects. These are listed below by relevant funding body with details of the supervisory team and project site(s). Please review the project proposals for a detailed look at the work involved in each project, any specific focus or training experience provided, and the background(s) suited to application. 

Details of how to apply are explained at the end of the project list at the bottom of this page.

Important dates:

• Applications for our main PhD recruitment round open on Friday 18 October 2019
• You need to complete and submit your application by 11.55pm UK time on Sunday 17 November 2019
• Applicants must be available for interview on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 January 2020

Studentships by category

• ICR and Cancer Research UK Centre funded studentships (14)
• CRIS Cancer Foundation and ICR funded studentship (1)
• Oracle Trust and ICR funded studentship (1)
• Sarcoma UK and ICR funded studentship (1)
• NIHR Biomedical Research Centre funded studentships (3)
• MRC funded industrial CASE (iCASE) programme in Enabling Integrated Drug Discovery (4 - restrictions apply)

Other useful links

• Eligibility and application Information
• ICR and Imperial Convergence Science PhD programme (currently recruiting for six studentships)

The ICR and Cancer Research UK Centre funded studentships

The Cancer Research UK Centre is a strategic partnership between Cancer Research UK, the ICR and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust which aims to enhance translational research.

These studentships are open to all applicants (including overseas). Please read our entry requirements for further eligibility information.

1) Structure and molecular function of the DREAM complex in gene expression programs of cellular quiescence

• Application menu title: Structure and function of the DREAM complex in cellular quiescence
• Primary supervisor: Dr Claudio Alfieri
• Other members of the supervisory team: To be decided
• Primary division and team: Structural Biology, Molecular mechanisms for cell cycle regulation
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

2) Novel probes for investigating the tumour microenvironment and tissue targeting

• Application menu title: Probes for investigating the tumour microenvironment
• Primary supervisor: Dr Gurdip Bhalay
• Other members of the supervisory team: Professor Nicola Valeri, Dr Gabriela Kramer-Marek, Dr Swen Hoelder
• Primary division and team: Cancer Therapeutics Unit, Medicinal Chemistry Team 1
• Project area(s): Chemistry

View project proposal

3) A fragment-based approach to identify protein-protein interaction inhibitors of Shelterin complex assembly

• Application menu title: Protein-protein interaction inhibitors of Shelterin complex assembly
• Primary supervisor: Professor Ian Collins
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Sebastian Guettler, Dr Mariola Zaleska, Dr Swen Hoelder
• Primary division and team:Cancer Therapeutics, Medicinal Chemistry 2
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences, Chemistry

4) Defining replication mechanisms at the telomere end

• Application menu title: Defining replication mechanisms at the telomere end
• Primary supervisor: Dr Max Douglas
• Other members of the supervisory team: To be decided
• Primary division and team: Cancer Biology, Telomere Biology
• Project discipline(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

5) Conformational switches of AXIN in Wnt/Beta-catenin signalling

• Application menu title: Conformational switches of AXIN in Wnt/Beta-catenin signalling
• Primary supervisor: Dr Sebastian Guettler
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Jyoti Choudhary, Dr Vlad Pena
• Primary division and team: Structural Biology, Structural Biology of Cell Signalling
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

6) Enhancement of radiation induced cell death using ultrasound stimulated microbubbles

• Application menu title: Radiation induced cell death using ultrasound stimulated microbubbles
• Primary supervisor: Dr Emma Harris
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Carol Box, Professor Kevin Harrington, Dr John Civale, Professor Jeff Bamber
• Primary division and team: Radiotherapy and Imaging, Imaging for Radiotherapy Adaptation
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences, Physics/Engineering

View project proposal

7) Integrative computational analysis of molecular and clinical data to dissect heterogeneity of therapy response in sarcomas

• Application menu title: Computational analysis to investigate therapy response in sarcomas
• Primary supervisor: Dr Paul Huang
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Maggie Cheang
• Primary division and team: Molecular Pathology, Molecular and Systems Oncology
• Project area(s): Maths/Statistics/Epidemiology

8) Evolutionary dynamics of MEK inhibitor sensitivity and resistance in diffuse midline glioma

• Application menu title: Evolutionary dynamics of MEK inhibitor resistance in midline glioma
• Primary supervisor: Professor Chris Jones
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Olivia Rossanese, Rebecca Rogers, Dr Mimi Bandopadhayay
• Primary division and team: Molecular Pathology, Glioma
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

9) Understanding the homeostatic response to DNA repair inhibitors in breast cancer

• Application menu title: Homeostatic response to DNA repair inhibitors in breast cancer
• Primary supervisor: Professor Chris Lord
• Other members of the supervisory team: Professor Andrew Tutt, Dr Stephen Pettitt, Professor Nicholas Turner
• Primary division and team: Breast Cancer Research, Gene Function
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal 

10) Winners versus Losers: Harnessing Cell Competition to kill tumour cells

• Application menu title: Harnessing Cell Competition to kill tumour cells
• Primary supervisor: Professor Pascal Meier
• Other members of the supervisory team: Professor Spiros Linardopoulos
• Primary division and team: Breast Cancer Research , Cell Death and Immunity
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

11) Systematic investigation of the mechanisms of replication fork protection, towards novel therapeutic strategy

• Application menu title: Replication stress in genome stability and cancer
• Primary supervisor: Dr Wojciech Niedzwiedz
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Peter Martin, Professor Jessica Downs
• Primary division and team: Cancer Biology, Genome Instability and Cancer
• Project area(s): Biological sciences

12) Advanced functional MRI for the characterisation of paediatric glioma and its response to therapy

• Application menu title: fMRI for characterising paediatric glioma and therapy response
• Primary supervisor: Dr Simon Robinson
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Jessica Boult, Dr Yann Jamin, Professor Chris Jones
• Primary division and team: Radiotherapy and Imaging, Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences, Physics/Engineering

View project proposal

13) Functional characterisation of DNA damage response deficiency in cancer

• Application menu title: Characterisation of DNA damage response deficiency in cancer
• Primary supervisor: Dr Anderson Wang
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Olivia Rossanese
• Primary division and team: Cancer Therapeutics, Target biology and genomic instability
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

 View project proposal

CRUK and ICR funded studentships

14) Leveraging state-of-the-art methods in Artificial Intelligence and medical imaging for automated response evaluation and prediction of soft-tissue sarcomas to systemic treatment. 

• Application menu title: AI and imaging for evaluation of soft-tissue sarcoma to treatment
• Primary supervisor: Dr Matthew Blackledge
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Christina Messiou, Dr Paul Huang
• Primary division and team: Radiotherapy and Imaging, Computational Imaging
• Project area(s): Physics/Engineering, Maths/Statistics/Epidemiology, Computer Science

View project proposal

CRIS Cancer Foundation and ICR funded studentship

15) Characterisation and preclinical evaluation of a fibroblast-activating protein (FAP) targeted TRUCK CAR T-cell therapy for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM)

• Application menu title: TRUCK CAR T-cell therapy for malignant mesothelioma
• Primary supervisor: Dr Astero Klampatsa
• Other members of the supervisory team: Professor Alan Melcher, Professor Clare Isacke
• Primary division and team: Cancer Therapeutics, Thoracic Oncology Immunotherapy Group
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences, Immunology

View project proposal

Oracle Trust and ICR funded studentship

16) Characterising the immunopeptidome by proteogenomics and elucidating their associated immune response in head and neck cancer

• Application menu title: Drivers of the immune response in head and neck cancer
• Primary supervisor: Dr Jyoti Choudhary
• Other members of the supervisory team: Professor Alan Melcher and Professor Kevin Harrington
• Primary division and team: Cancer Biology, Functional proteomics
• Project area(s): Biological Science, Bioinformatics

View project proposal

Sarcoma UK and ICR funded studentship

17) TRANS-CASPS: Translational studies in the Cediranib in Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma
(CASPS) trial

• Application menu title: Translational studies in the CASPS trial
• Primary supervisor: Dr Robin Jones
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Paul Huang
• Primary division and team: Clinical Studies, Sarcoma Clinical Trials and Translational Research
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

NIHR Biomedical Research Centre funded studentships

These studentships fund clinically focused projects supporting the translational work of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research.

Each project has strong links to clinical units in the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust building on strengths in basic sciences and their translational value. Students will have supervision from both a clinician and a basic scientist and be embedded in the research philosophy of the Biomedical Research Centre.

These studentships are open to all applicants (including overseas applicants). Please see our entry requirements for further eligibility information.

18) The development and implementation of Multi-Spectral CT imaging techniques and artificial intelligence methods within stereotactic radiosurgery treatment planning for oligometastases in the brain and intracranial meningiomas

• Application menu title: CT and AI in radiosurgery treatment planning for neuro-oncology
• Primary supervisor: Dr Dimitra Darambara
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Liam Welsh, Dr Ben Glocker, Margaret Bidmead, Professor Chris Nutting
• Primary division and team: Radiotherapy and Imaging, Multimodality Molecular Imaging
• Project area(s): Physics/Engineering, Computer Science

View project proposal

19) Molecular mechanisms of acquired chemotherapy resistance in colorectal cancer and their implications for novel therapeutics development

• Application menu title: Deciphering acquired chemotherapy resistance in colorectal cancer
• Primary supervisor: Dr Marco Gerlinger
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Jyoti Choudhary, Dr Anguraj Sadanandam
• Primary division and team: Molecular Pathology, Translational Oncogenomics
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

20) Development and Implementation of Efficient Adaptive Designs in Early Phase Oncology Trials for Novel Agents 

• Application menu title: Developing adaptive designs for targeted agents in early phase trials
• Primary supervisor: Professor Christina Yap
• Other members of the supervisory team: Professor Johann de Bono, Professor Adrian Mander, Professor Judith Bliss
• Primary division and team(s): Clinical Studies, Clinical Trials and Statistics Unit and Drug Development Unit
• Project area(s): Maths/Statistics/Epidemiology

View project proposal

MRC funded industrial CASE (iCASE) programme in Enabling Integrated Drug Discovery

This programme offers an exciting opportunity to train as a researcher with exposure to and understanding of integrated interdisciplinary drug discovery in both academia and industry.

These studentships are funded by the Medical Research Council. Normally to be eligible for a full award a student must have no restrictions on how long they can stay in the UK and have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least 3 years prior to the start of the studentship. Please see the MRC residency requirements for further information.

Our iCASE programme offers projects in collaboration with two industry partners, AstraZeneca and Merck. The scheme will:

• Provide students with experience of collaborative research with a non‐academic partner
• Offer outstanding students an experience of at least two distinct research cultures
• Provide access to a wider than usual range of technology, facilities and expertise
• Enable the student to spend a period of time with the non-academic partner (usually no less than 3 months over the lifetime of the PhD)

Visit the Medical Research Council website for further details of the scheme.

There are four iCASE studentships available:

21) Investigating the druggability of the motif-mediated interactome with peptide PROTACs

• Application menu title: Druggability of the motif-mediated interactome with peptide PROTACs
• Primary supervisor: Dr Norman Davey
• Industrial partner: Merck
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Sebastian Guettler, Professor Jon Pines, Stefan Jaekel
• Primary division and team: Cancer Biology, Short Linear Motifs
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

22) In-silico approaches to enable optimisation of small molecule binding by perturbing and interacting with water networks

• Application menu title: In silico optimisation of small molecule binding with water networks
• Primary supervisor:  Dr Swen Hoelder
• Industrial partner: AstraZeneca
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Mirco Meniconi, Professor Bissan Al-Lazikani, Mike Bodnarchuck
• Primary division and team: Cancer Therapeutics, Medicinal Chemistry team 4
• Project area(s): Chemistry, Computer Science

View project proposal

23) Elucidating resistance to AKT inhibition in metastatic breast cancer

• Application menu title: Resistance to AKT inhibition in metastatic breast cancer
• Primary supervisor: Professor Nicholas Turner
• Industrial partner: AstraZeneca
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Alex Pearson, Professor Chris Lord, Dr Elza de Bruin
• Primary division and team: Breast Cancer Research, Molecular Oncology
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

24) Understanding the regulation and impact of variant splicing in non-small cell lung cancer

• Application menu title: Impact of variant splicing in non-small cell lung cancer
• Primary supervisor: Professor Paul Workman, FRS
• Industrial partner: Merck
• Other members of the supervisory team: Dr Paul Clarke, Dr Robert Van Montfort, Dr  Christina Esdar
• Primary division and team: Cancer Therapeutics, Signal Transduction and Molecular Pharmacology
• Project area(s): Biological Sciences

View project proposal

Eligibility and application information

In addition to our general entry requirements, further eligibility criteria may apply to specific programmes and projects. Please ensure to read the information provided by the funding body and also the project proposals.

Please ensure that you read the following application instructions carefully:

How to apply

Applications for our main round of PhD studentships are made online via the ICR's Student Application Portal.

Out of the 24 projects above, you will be asked to indicate up to three project preferences.

Important dates:

• Applications open on Friday 18 October 2019
• You need to complete and submit your application by 11.55pm UK time on Sunday 17 November 2019
• Applicants should be available for interview on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 January 2020