PhD Studentship - From Discovery to Design: Engineering the Nitroplast for Synthetic Nitrogen Fixation
Award summary
This provides a stipend of £31,805 per year for students who are eligible for Home fee status. 100% Home fees covered.
Overview
Although nitrogen is essential for all life, most organisms cannot directly utilise the vast reservoir of atmospheric nitrogen gas and instead depend on biologically available forms of nitrogen, which in agriculture are commonly supplied through industrial fertilisers. While these fertilisers have transformed global food production, their manufacture is highly energy-intensive and their use contributes to significant environmental pollution. This project explores a recently discovered cellular structure known as the nitroplast, which is capable of fixing nitrogen directly within a eukaryotic cell. The nitroplast challenges long-held assumptions about how nitrogen fixation operates in nature and represents a potentially transformative step in the evolution of cellular complexity. This PhD will investigate how the nitroplast functions, how it is maintained within its host, and the molecular and physiological interactions that underpin this unique symbiosis. By combining experimental approaches across engineering biology, the project will provide new insights into one of the most remarkable biological discoveries of recent years and advance our understanding of how nitrogen fixation can become integrated into complex cells.
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