In the first year students will undertake a 'tri-project' comprising three, 8-week mini-projects which will form part of a cohort team-based activity and involve working across all 3 partner institutions. An additional 'bench to bedside' translational group project will be undertaken across the first 12 months.
As part of the DTC emphasis on translational activity, students may be required to undertake short 2 week secondments to industrial and clinical partners for 'micro-projects'. PhD research project selection for each Doctoral Student will be defined at the end of the first year within the context of the foci of Core expertise available and against the major challenges in the field whilst informed by the individual aspirations of the Doctoral Student and his sponsor(s). In addition to defining any specialist training needs, the Student will be required to produce a full case for his/her project including delivery of a study of the financial and economic implications of the proposed research. Students will be expected to undertake their own project management and budgetary control as part of their research training.
Typical project areas that might be undertaken in each of the major challenges:
| Major Challenges | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controlling Differentiation Environments | Designing Minimally Invasive Scaffolds | Cell Bio-manufacturing | ||
| Core Ex-pertise within Centre | Clinical Expertise | Defining tissue formation and function for cell therapy treatments | Injectable materials that stimulate bone and cartilage repair | cGMP expansion for mesenchymal & embryonic stem cells |
| Non-Invasive Monitoring | Real time quantification during tissue engineering in vivo and in vitro | Novel monitoring devices integrated into the scaffold matrix | On-line monitoring for bioprocess control | |
| Stem Cell Biology | Continual monitoring of the state-of-the-art in developmental /cell biology | Maintenance of cell phenotype and proliferative potential after in vivo delivery | Cell characterisation for informed bioprocess design | |
| Bio- processing | Differentiation by stimulation via design and control of the bioprocess environment | Handling, storage and the control of therapy formulation at point of delivery | Informed scale-up or scale-out for cGMP manufacture | |
