Microbiota and metabolic disease: what are the biological functions of lipids?
Supervisors:
Dr Adam Dobson, School of Molecular Biosciences (University of Glasgow)
Dr Colin McClure, School of Biological Sciences (Queen's University Belfast)
Prof Gail McConnell, Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (University of Strathclyde)
Prof Phil Whitfield, School of Infection and Immunity (University of Glasgow)
Summary:
Gut microbiota are strongly implicated in metabolic diseases, including an accumulation of lipids leading to obesity. We do not know precisely which metabolic pathways are important for these impacts on host lipids. More generally, lipids are a frontier in the biosciences: we know surprisingly little about their cellular functions.
In this project you will use a powerful Drosophila (fruitfly) model, which is the only animal system where all aspects of bacterial function, diet, and host biology can be controlled, with powerful tools to manipulate the function of specific tissues. This allows us to study mechanisms that are conserved throughout animal life, including in humans. You will use this model to understand the basic biology of microbiota, host lipids, and impacts on gene regulation. The project will provide fundamental and novel insights into evolutionarily-conserved mechanisms for microbial regulation of host health.
You will get experience and training in cutting-edge disciplines - lipidomics, metabolism, bioimaging, nextgeneration sequencing, and gene regulation - supervised by innovators who have developed new methods in these fields. This will equip you with thorough training in highly transferrable computational, laboratory and analytical skills, which are in high demand across research, biotech and data science sectors.