Identification and characterisation of conserved protein families involved in ciliary function and diseases

DTP概述：这个由MRC资助的博士培训伙伴关系(DTP)将尖端分子和分析科学与数据分析中的创新计算方法结合在一起，使学生能够解决假设引导的生物医学研究问题。这是一个为期4年的课程，第一年包括一系列的教学模块和两个基于实验室的研究项目，这些项目导致了跨学科生物医学研究的硕士学位。前两个学期包括精选的教学模块，使学生能够在多学科的科学中获得坚实的基础。学生们还参加了由学术和行业专家主持的一系列大师课程，这些专家涉及分子、细胞和组织动力学、微生物学和传染病、应用生物医学技术以及人工智能和数据科学等领域。在第三学期和暑期，学生们在他们选择的实验室里进行两个为期十一周的研究项目。项目概述：纤毛(又称鞭毛)是具有多种功能的细胞突起。活动的纤毛“跳动”，允许细胞移动和液体在组织表面的移动，而固定的纤毛充当细胞的感觉触角，在动物发育过程中起着关键作用。过多的人类综合症(统称为“纤毛病症”)是由纤毛缺陷引起的。纤毛在进化上是古老的，其主要结构特征在15亿多年前就存在于原始细胞中。非洲锥虫是研究纤毛的优秀系统。利用无与伦比的遗传工具和数据库资源，锥虫很容易培养。此外，纤毛功能对于它们的毒力和传播以及它们导致人类非洲睡眠的能力是必不可少的。这个项目将使用进化分析来发现新的、没有特征的纤毛蛋白家族。这些家族的成员将在两个非常不同的模型系统中进行研究，以更好地了解它们：锥体(单细胞且高度易驯化)和培养的人类细胞(与人类遗传病相关)。该项目将在数据科学(编程和使用大数据集)和实验生物学(分子遗传学和生物化学)方面提供高质量的培训。这与跨学科技能的MRC战略优先事项相交，因为它处于计算和分子细胞生物学的界面上。

DTP overview:This MRC-funded doctoral training partnership (DTP) brings together cutting-edge molecular and analytical sciences with innovative computational approaches in data analysis to enable students to address hypothesis-led biomedical research questions. This is a 4-year programme whose first year involves a series of taught modules and two laboratory-based research projects that lead to an MSc in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research. The first two terms consist of a selection of taught modules that allow students to gain a solid grounding in multidisciplinary science. Students also attend a series of masterclasses led by academic and industry experts in areas of molecular, cellular and tissue dynamics, microbiology and infection, applied biomedical technologies and artificial intelligence and data science. During the third and summer terms students conduct two eleven-week research projects in labs of their choice. Project overview: Cilia (also termed flagella) are cellular protrusions with diverse functions. Motile cilia "beat" to allow cellular movement and movement of fluids across tissue surfaces, and immotile cilia act as the cell's sensory antennae and have key roles during animal development. A plethora of human syndromes (collectively called "ciliopathies") are caused by defective cilia. Cilia are evolutionarily ancient, and the main structural features were present in primordial cells more than 1.5 billion years ago.African trypanosomes are an excellent system for ciliary studies. Trypanosomes are easy to culture with unrivalled genetic tools and database resources. Moreover, ciliary function is essential for their virulence and transmission and their ability to cause human African Sleeping Sickness.This project will use evolutionary analyses to discover new, uncharacterised ciliary protein families. Members of these families will be investigated in two very different model systems to understand them better: trypanosomes (single celled and highly tractable) and cultured human cells (human genetic disease relevance).This project will provide high quality training in data science (programming and working with large datasets) and experimental biology (molecular genetics and biochemistry). This intersects with the MRC strategic priority of Interdisciplinary skills as it is at the interface of computational and molecular-cell biology.