The MRes and PhD together form an integrated 4 year programme. The MRes component is not a stand alone course and applicants are expected to commit themselves to the whole course. The Doctoral Training Centre studentships are for 4 years and other studentships available through CoMPLEX are also normally for 4 years.
The First MRes Year. This provides the core skills needed for interdisciplinary research. Progression to the PhD element depends on achieving MRes standard in the first year. The MRes has four major components.
Foundation Courses.
Students from a mathematical or physical sciences background take undergraduate courses in basic modern biology covering genetics, molecular biology, cell biology, physiology and ecology. Students from the life sciences take appropriate courses in mathematics based on individual need. All students are encouraged to develop relevant computer programming skills, for example by attending the Programming with Mathematica course run by the Department of Mathematics. All students will take the tailor-made Advanced Biological Modelling and Bioinformatics (ABMB) and the Introduction to Physical Techniques in the Life Sciences (ITPL) courses developed specifically for the programme. The ABMB course includes lectures on dynamical systems, reaction diffusion equations, cellular automata, stochastic modelling, curve fitting, Markov chains and coalescent theory as applied to biological systems. There will be a computer laboratory practical course which run in parallel with ABMB. The ITPL course introduces optical probe, scanning probe and nanoelectrochemical techniques. These courses are augmented by two short practical courses:-
Course 1 (two weeks) introduces students to experimental techniques developed by physical scientists for application to life sciences projects. It will include an introduction to optical spectroscopy, scanning probe microscopy, fluorescent probe correlation measurements electrophysiological techniques (eg patch clamps analysis of ion channel data) and imaging in biological systems.
Course 2 (one week) introduces students to collection and analysis work in the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association(MBA), Plymouth. Work includes ecological data collection and analysis, long term changes in speciation in the English Channel. Students are not required to sit written examinations in these foundation courses.
Case Presentations Twelve case presentations describing active interdisciplinary research projects will be given by life scientists and mathematical/physical scientists who are members of CoMPLEX. In each presentation the life scientist sets out the biomedical problem to be solved and the case for collaborative work. The mathematical/physical scientist then explains how they set about tackling the problem and how this fed back into their own research. Tutorial/discussions consolidate the formal sessions. Each student will choose three of these case presentations for further study and write an extended essay on each, which will be assessed. Students will be expected to demonstrate that they have understood both the life sciences problem and the mathematical/physical science issues that underpin its solution. The aim is to provide students with a relatively broad base in approaches to interdisciplinary research. The essays will account for 40% of the MRes course marks.
Summer project Students will undertake a summer research project which will run from Easter onwards for four months. The project may be theoretical or practical and will involve original research. Final assessment will include a short presentation on the results obtained, and an oral examination on any aspect of work done.
A list of potential topics and supervisors will be circulated to the students, but in exceptional circumstances they may suggest their own subject.
Summer projects must demonstrate evidence of substantial original interdisciplinary thinking. Work that merely describes a biological model, or develops a technique from the mathematical, computational or physical sciences but draws no biological conclusions is not sufficient. The summer project will count for 40% of the MRes marks.
Transferable Skills and Generic Research Training. This is provided through selected modules run by the graduate school, workshops run by the Institute of Child Health and fixed components organised by CoMPLEX. It includes training in statistics in biology, computer programming, web design, poster and oral presentations, bibliographic software and online bibliographic databases, writing research proposals, refereeing papers and safety in the laboratory. Students attend CoMPLEX interdisciplinary seminars and participate in a journal club. They prepare and orally present a proposal for their summer project and give an oral presentation on the project at its completion. The summer project proposal and presentation are formally assessed as part of the generic skills component. At the end of the year, they prepare a reflective essay discussing the skills they have acquired and highlighting any areas where further training is required. Workshops introduce the structure and organisation of biological and biomedical databases, why they are needed, what the biomedical scientist wants from them, and how mathematicians and computational scientists generate new algorithms. This module counts for 20% of the MRes marks.
The PhD Project (Years 2-4).
The formal part of the course is followed by a 3 year PhD research project in an internationally competitive research environment. The choice of the PhD project is delayed until completion of the MRes year during which students are deliberately exposed to a wide variety of methodologies and styles of collaborative research, as well as potential supervisors, before making a final choice. Students must present their proposal to the Programme Management Team, which considers both the match between student capabilities and project demands and the match between student and proposed supervisor. All students have two PhD supervisors, one from the mathematical/physical sciences and one from the life sciences.
If appropriate, the experience and skills acquired during the formal teaching of the MRes year may be amplified and enhanced by taking advanced courses in each of years two and three.
The overriding principal of the MRes/PhD is that at all stages of the programme students will interact with and have advice from researchers who have direct experience of collaboration between the life and mathematical/physical sciences as well as postdocs and research students who are at a more advanced stage of the same interdisciplinary training process. The PhD management team is made up equally of life scientists and mathematical/physical scientists with two co-directors, one from each discipline. The structure will ensure that the advice students receive is at the leading edge of current interdisciplinary research.
Topics for PhD projects include:
Mathematical modelling of molecular evolution, evolutionary genomics, gene and metabolic networks, cancer biology and immunology.
Bio and neuro informatics
Biophysics of vascular fluid mechanics, hearing and ion channels.
Imaging, optical and scanning probe approaches to nanoscale bioscience.
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