LSI and Nanyang Technological University launch pioneering Biomedical PhD studentship scheme

The LSI, on Exeter’s Streatham Campus, has partnered with the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), in Singapore, to deliver six split-site Biomedical PhD studentships.

These four-year studentships are designed to encourage innovative research into some of the world’s most pressing health problems.

These include infection & immunity, neuroscience and mental health, biophysics and optical technology, physical education and sport sciences and biomedical modelling and analysis.

Each student will spend a proportion of their time studying at the host universities, giving them unparalleled access to some of the very best teachers and facilities in life sciences.

The venture is led by an interdisciplinary team of researchers which include Professor Jonathan Mill, Professor Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova, Professor Frank Vollmer, Dr Genevieve Williams, Dr Marc Goodfellow and Dr Bertram Daum from Exeter.

At NTU, the team of academics include Professor George Augustine, Assistant Professor Luo Dahai, Assistant Professor Foo Jia Nee, Assistant Professor Sanjay Haresh Chotirmall and Dr Jia Yi Chow.

Professor Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova, from the Living Systems Institute and who recently visited NTU said: “It was excellent to meet all three of the NTU students and to see that they had all settled in well. I was particularly pleased to see that my student had got off to a great start with the project. In general, it has been an extremely productive and useful visit, illustrating the set up at NTU, enabling us to plan for the duration of the PhD and most importantly the time that my student will be spending at Exeter in the coming years." 

Exeter’s Living Systems Institute is pioneering novel approaches to understanding diseases and how they can be better diagnosed. This will inform prediction, diagnosis and treatment for some of the most severe diseases facing humanity, spanning a broad spectrum, from chronic neurodegenerative diseases to the animal and plant diseases that threaten food security.

Nanyang Technological University was recently named the world’s fastest-rising young university by Times Higher Education, and ranked 48 by THE World University Ranking 2020.

As part of the collaboration, the LSI will work closely with NTU’s Lee Kong Chain School of Medicine, whose holistic 'Systems Medicine' approach is a defining element of its research and will be key to its success in maximising impact in a competitive global environment.