PhD studentship Drugging kinase-driven brain cancer with multi-topic compounds

Dr Pau Creixell wishes to recruit a PhD student to work on the project entitled: Drugging kinase-driven brain cancer with multi-topic compounds. This is a unique opportunity for PhD study in the world-leading Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUK CI), to start a research career in an environment committed to training outstanding cancer research scientists of the future. The Institute's particular strengths are in genomics, computational biology and imaging; and significant research effort is currently devoted to cancers arising in the breast, pancreas, brain, and colon. Patients with brain cancer desperately need more effective tailored treatments. Virtually all brain cancer patients today are being treated with drugs that were not initially designed to target the brain but instead developed for, and tested in, patients with tumours elsewhere. Recent research shows that single or combined inhibition of a small subset of protein kinases leads to tumour regression in pre-clinical mouse models of brain cancer. While current drugs that inhibit protein kinases show significant clinical benefit in non-brain cancer patients, their low penetration and pharmacological activity in the brain prevents these drugs from achieving clinical benefits in brain cancer patients. While developing drugs that are specifically designed to penetrate and inhibit their targets exclusively in the brain would have been virtually impossible a few years ago, recent progress has made this possible now by combining different fragments from three separate drugs which has resulted in a new drug that stays bound to, and inhibits, kinases for longer, and whose activity depends on another protein that is present at high levels in brain cancer cells. In this project we will leverage our peptide display, biophysical binding and in vivo technologies so that we can ultimately identify new modalities to specifically target these protein kinases in the brain.,

• Supporting documents Applicants will be asked to provide: (a) Academic transcripts (b) Evidence of competence in English (if appropriate) (c) Details of two academic referees (d) CV/resume
  
  The successful PhD candidate will become part of a laboratory that integrates molecular biology, low- and high-throughput protein biochemistry along with computational approaches to understand protein substrate specificity at a molecular level. We are looking to recruit an enthusiastic and competent individual with excellent laboratory skills in molecular biology and protein biochemistry. Previous experience in high throughput bacterial peptide display would be highly advantageous., Applicants should have a B.Sc. or M.Sc. degree (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline (Biology, Biochemistry, Natural Sciences). A background in cellular signalling, cancer biology and/or computational biology with a focus on kinases would be beneficial.
This four-year studentship is funded by Cancer Research UK Children¿s Brain Tumour Centre (CRUK CBTCE) and includes full funding for University fees (home/UK fees) and, in addition, a stipend currently of £21,000 per annum for four years. The position will only support fees at the CRUK set home/UK fees rate. Any shortfall between our standard fee allowance and the international fee rate must be covered by another source of funding by the institution and cannot be covered by the student themselves. Applications are invited from recent graduates or final-year undergraduates who hold or expect to gain a First/Upper Second Class degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject from any recognised university worldwide.

Our laboratory is part of the Cancer Research UK Children's Brain Tumour Centre (CRUK CBTCE), which convenes a critical mass of expert personnel, infrastructure and global collaborations in paediatric brain tumour biology, medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, and preclinical and clinical trials. The CRUK CBTCE research strategy is centred around our innovative pipeline aiming to generate curative treatments for brain cancer. Building from our previous success of our 6-year programme (https://www.crukchildrensbraintumourcentre.org) and thanks to its recent successful five-year renewal of funding from CRUK building, the successful PhD candidate will benefit from being part of the CRUK CBTCE Early Career Research Network. This will offer opportunities to visit collaborating labs, participate in Symposia, Summer Schools and present at internal and external meetings.