Vacancies
PhD students and staff
Unfortunately, we do not have any current vacancies.
Independent funding
We welcome motivated individuals seeking independent funding from UK or international fellowships, studentships or short-term placement schemes. We are particularly keen to support individuals seeking to learn and expand the area of cell-free synthetic biology. In addition, we also welcome self-funded individuals. Please contact Dr Simon Moore at s.j.r.moore[at]kent.ac.uk for informal discussions.
Masters by research students
We regularly support summer studentships and MSc by research students. Potential projects are listed below.
MSc-R projects available
"Silent" biosynthetic gene clusters
Synthetic biology is accelerating the discovery of promising new bioactive natural products. We are interested in studying "silent" biosynthetic gene clusters and specific pathways of interest. Our focus is on developing tools that overcome barriers in natural product discovery, as well as elucidating biosynthetic pathways.
Novel antibiotics for Gram-negative bacterial infectious diseases
There is an urgent need to develop new antibiotics to prevent mortality from infectious diseases. We are working on new methodologies to identify antibiotics that inhibit Gram-negative bacteria (to be published).
Cell-free TX-TL and biosynthesis
Cell-free TX-TL is a rapidly developing area in synthetic biology for the implementation of the design-built-test-learn cycle. We are interested in the potential of using cell-free systems to study Streptomyces genetics, BGCs and enzymes from natural product biosynthesis.
Fluorescent direct protein (DiPro) biosensors
Fluorescence is a valuable physical property widely exploited for medical imaging through to detecting diseases and toxic chemicals. Recently, we have discovered a novel fluorescent protein that detects specific chemicals. We call this mechanism a direct protein (DiPro) biosensor.
DiPro biosensor preprint - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.22.461347v1