Within the Lancaster Environment Centre a PhD project is available on carboxysome engineering, which is aiming to build upon our previous work towards assembling a cyanobacterial carboxysome in plant chloroplasts. This is the central part of attempts to build a cyanobacterial CCM within plants to boost photosynthetic efficiency. This project will involve in vitro and in planta analysis of existing transgenics lines, generation of new lines and work to optimise the synthesis and assembly of carboxysomes within plants. This project is co-supervised by Marj Lundgren and is based entirely in Lancaster, though with possibilities to visit national and international collaborators for some aspects of the work. This project would suit a student interested in plant synthetic biology and who has or would like to develop skills in molecular biology, biochemistry, and plant engineering.
Full details including the application process can be found at this link, please note that due to funding this project is only available to students who qualify as UK ‘home’ students: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lec/graduate-school/phd/phd-opportunities/#building-a-plantbased-carboxysome-to-improve-photosynthesis-371066-1
Informal enquiries from students are welcome, but applications must be submitted using the instructions linked above.