Wellcome Trust 4-Year PhD Programme

Introduction

Rapidly developing systems biology technologies and data resources have opened a new era in molecular and genetic research. Combined with life course studies in population-based cohorts, these approaches will significantly improve our understanding of causal pathways that lead to disease and its progression.

Success in this venture is dependent on training a new generation of scientists, equipped with the analytical and technical skills to integrate molecular and genetic epidemiology with population-based sciences in innovative ways. This PhD Programme in Molecular, Genetic and Lifecourse Epidemiology, offers an integrated approach to postgraduate education in a collaborative and multidisciplinary environment. It complements parallel leading edge interdisciplinary PhD programmes in Bristol in Dynamic Cell Biology and in Complex Networks.

Your PhD will consist of a 1st year of 3 x 10 week attachments in the following core areas: epidemiology, biostatistics/ bioinformatics and genetic laboratory skills . The rotations are integrated with associated core-topic 1-5 day Short Courses , which you will select on the basis of past experience and continued training needs. In the final 10 weeks of the 1st year you will choose your PhD project and prepare a detailed research proposal, which you will present to two potential PhD supervisors and one other person external to the project. The proposal will include:

1. a critical literature review, setting the project within the current body of knowledge;
2. hypotheses to be tested; and
3. a research plan and timetable for the next 3 years.

The subsequent 3 years will be spent undertaking your PhD research.

All of your studies (apart from attendance at specialist courses, international meetings or working with collaborators elsewhere) will be at the University, which is near the centre of Bristol, a vibrant and leading UK city .

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