SULSA PhD studentship at Aberdeen University

A SULSA PhD studentship is on offer starting August / September 2008. We are looking for a motived PhD candidate to join our internationally reputable research groups to investigate the cell migration and division control. We have excellent publication track record on Nature, Science, J Cell Biology, PNAS and etc.. This PhD studentship will cover for UK/EU student fee (£3,300) plus a stipend (£12,940 per year).

This project will investigate the molecular and genetic mechanisms of electric signals regulated cell migration and division, and potential interactions with other chemical guidance cues. This studentship is funded by SULSA organization in Scotland, and will be co-supervised by Dr Bing Song (University of Aberdeen, UK), Professor Min Zhao (University of California, Davis, USA) and Professor C Weijer (Dundee University, UK). Due to the nature of the project, the successful PhD candidate might need to travel between different campuses to carry out different part of the project, but the majority of the project will be based in Aberdeen.

If you are interested in this PhD studentship, please contact with Dr Bing Song (b.song@abdn.ac.uk , ext. 55732, IMS room 4.35) in the first instance.
Please see the summary of the PhD project as below.

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Summary of the project:

Title: PhD project Title: Molecular mechanisms of electric signals regulated cell migration and cell division

This project will be co-supervised by Dr B Song (University of Aberdeen, UK), Professor M Zhao (University of California, Davis, USA), and Professor C Weijer (University of Dundee, UK). The project is funded by Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA).

Directional cell migration and oriented cell division are essential in embryonic development, wound healing and regeneration and have shown to be controlled by chemotaxis, haptotaxis and specific interactions with the substrate. We recently demonstrated the existence of a novel guidance cue directing cell migration. We showed that naturally occurring electrical fields (EFs) play critical roles in controlling directional cell migration in wound healing and that PI3K and PTEN pathways are essential in regulating this event (Nature 2006. 442: 457-60). We also showed that electric fields could control the oriented cell division both in vitro and in vivo during wound healing (PNAS 1999. 96: 4942-6; PNAS 2002. 99:13577-82). Interestingly, our recent work discovered that there might be alternative pathways either interacting with or running in parallel with PI3K/PTEN pathways.

Our previous study showed that the G protein-coupled receptor pathway was partially involved in the electric signals controlled cell migration, because disrupting Gβ subunit only partially reduced the electrotactic response (J Cell Biol. 2002. 157: 921-7). We shall investigate whether the chemotactic signal transduction pathway components are important for the electrotactic response (Science 2003. 300: 96-100; Dev. Cell 2005. 9: 19-34). We shall use cAMP receptor null and affinity mutants to study whether they play a role in the electrotactic response of cell migration and division. We shall then extend these studies to other components of the signal transduction to the cytoskeleton (Ras and PI3 kinase mutants, mutants in Pten, Rac GEFs and Rac themselves as well as elements of the actin myosin cytoskeleton).

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