Research cohorts and projects

Primary supervisor: Dr Andrew Scott, National Lung and Heart Institute
Co-supervisor: Professor Denis Doorly, Department of Aeronautics

Primary supervisor: Dr Sonia Nielles-Vallespin, National Lung and Heart Institute
Co-supervisor: Professor Daniel Rueckert, Department of Computing
Co-supervisor: Dr Pedro Ferreira, National Lung and Heart Institute

Please note:

• Open to home and international candidates. Tuition fees will be covered at the EPSRC rate (currently £5,006) and international candidates will be required to cover the remaining fees. International tuition fees are currently £45,850 per annum (in the Faculty of Medicine).
• *This project is offered with a departmental studentship, and is not EPSRC funded. The successful candidate for this project will not be eligible for certain EPSRC-funded initiatives outside the PhD. Examples include UKRI Policy Internships and the Royal Institution Internships. However submission to the FoM Dean's PhD Professional Development Awards is permitted to fund other initiatives.

Project title: Investigating cardiac muscle microstructural changes as early marker of cardiac ageing and of cardiac disease development

Project abstract: The complex and unique microstructural arrangement of cells inside the heart muscle underlies cardiac contraction. Microstructural changes in the myocardium often precede macroscopic changes in heart disease and lead to poor outcomes in patients with identified cardiac pathologies.

Primary supervisor: Dr Michela Noseda, National Heart and Lung Institute
Co-supervisor: Dr Chris Cantwell, Department of Aeronautics
Co-supervisor: Dr Sonia Nielles-Vallespin, National Heart and Lung Institute

Note: Open to home and international candidates.
Tuition fees will be covered at the EPSRC rate (currently £5,006) and international candidates will be required to cover the remaining fees. International tuition fees are currently £45,850 per annum (in the Faculty of Medicine).

Project title: Multimodal 3D Reconstruction of the Human Heart to Uncover Links Between Structure, Gene Expression, and Cellular Niches

Project abstract: Cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of death worldwide, yet the mechanisms that drive its onset and progression are still incompletely understood. A central challenge is that cardiac function emerges from the precise three-dimensional (3D) organisation of cardiac cells cells and their local environment. When this architecture becomes disrupted, as in cardiomyopathy, contractile performance declines. However, how changes in tissue structure relate to shifts in cell identity and intercellular communication remains largely unresolved.

Single-cell transcriptomics and spatial profiling studies indicate that cardiac cells are organised in distinct patterns across different cardiac regions reflecting different function. Early observations in diseased tissue suggest that these patterns are altered, pointing to a close coupling between structure and cellular behaviour. Yet most existing approaches lack the ability to capture these relationships in 3D or to integrate structural and molecular information across scales. There is therefore a critical need to study intact human myocardium using approaches that preserve both architecture and cellular context.

In this project, we will develop an integrated multimodal framework to reconstruct the human heart in 3D, combining advanced imaging, spatial molecular profiling, and computational modelling. This approach will enable us to map how myocardial structure aligns with cell identity and local communication networks in both health and disease.

This work will provide pipeline and a foundation for understanding how complex tissue architecture governs function in the human heart tissue and beyond. We expect to define key principles linking 3D tissue organisation to cellular state and interaction, and to identify features of structural disruption associated with disease.

Primary supervisor: Professor Fu Siong Ng, National Lung and Heart Institute
Co-supervisor: Dr Carlos Cueto, Department of Earth Science and Engineering
Co-supervisor: Professor Mengxing Tang,  Department of Bioengineering

Note: Open to home and international candidates.
Tuition fees will be covered at the EPSRC rate (currently £5,006) and international candidates will be required to cover the remaining fees. International tuition fees are currently £45,850 per annum (in the Faculty of Medicine).

Project title: Acoustoelectric Imaging for Transmural Ventricular Activation Mapping and 4D Substrate Characterisation

Project abstract: Ventricular tachycardias (VT) are life-threatening arrhythmias responsible for significant morbidity and mortality. Although catheter ablation offers the potential for cure, recurrence rates remain unacceptably high - partly because existing electroanatomical mapping technologies are confined to the endocardial or epicardial surface and cannot resolve mid-wall (intramural) electrical activity. Critical arrhythmogenic substrates deep within the myocardium are therefore routinely missed, undermining the precision of ablation therapy.

This project will develop and validate acoustoelectric imaging (AEI) as a transformative new modality for cardiac electrophysiology. AEI exploits the acoustoelectric effect, whereby a focused ultrasound pulse interacts with tissue resistivity to generate electrical signals that encode local current density. This enables volumetric mapping of cardiac electrical activity with high spatial and temporal resolution - extending far beyond the tissue surface and through the full ventricular wall.

Working across Imperial College London's National Heart and Lung Institute and Department of Bioengineering, the PhD student will:

1. build and optimise a cardiac AEI hardware and software platform
2. characterise system performance in tissue-mimicking phantoms
3. validate transmural 4D activation mapping against established techniques in isolated perfused hearts
4. assess the ability of AEI to detect ablation lesions and differentiate healthy from scarred myocardium

The project will conclude with a translational design roadmap for future in vivo studies. Success will deliver the first imaging modality capable of capturing full-thickness ventricular activation sequences in four dimensions, with direct implications for improving ablation outcomes and reducing VT recurrence.

Primary supervisor: Dr Ravinash Krishna Kumar, Department of Infectious Disease
Co-supervisor: Professor Doryen Bubeck, Department of Life Sciences

Primary supervisor: Professor Charlotte Bevan, Department of Surgery & Cancer 
Co-supervisor: Professor Oscar Ces, Department of Chemistry

Primary supervisor: Dr Beth Holder, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction
Co-supervisor: Dr Yuval Elani, Department of Chemical Engineering 

Note: This project is open to home fee status candidates only

Project title: Extracellular vesicle RNA signatures as biomarkers for in situ activation of synthetic cell therapeutics   

Project abstract: We are building a new class of autonomous synthetic cell therapies: engineered systems that read the molecular language of disease and respond only when needed. This project will create synthetic cells capable of detecting RNA signatures carried within extracellular vesicles (EVs) and using them as triggers to produce and release therapeutic outputs in situ. These are treatments that switch on only in the presence of pathological signals, and will constitute a step-change toward precision, self-regulating therapeutics.

Our first application targets a major unmet medical challenge of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). HCMV infection is a serious risk in transplantation, where viral reactivation leads to severe complications, and it remains a leading cause of congenital disability. Recent evidence shows that circulating EVs transport distinctive RNA fingerprints of viral activity. The long-term vision is a platform generalisable to any disease characterised by a unique EV RNA profile.

This interdisciplinary PhD brings together physical sciences innovation from the Elani Lab with expertise in EV biology from the Holder Lab. You will engineer a synthetic-cell sensing platform built upon the following core technologies: (i) cell-free gene expression for programmable biochemical computation; (ii) Membrane engineering to tune EV/Synthetic Cell interactions (iii)  Microfluidic technologies for high-throughput SynCell generation and screening (iv) EV isolation from HCMV-infected cells to provide disease signals for system validation.

We are keen to hear from creative scientists eager to work at the interface of molecular engineering, biomedicine, chemical biology, and synthetic biology. You will thrive here if you’re excited by building entirely new biological systems, and using them to solve biomedical challenges.