C. difficile is intrinsically resistant to many antibiotics and thrives in the disrupted gut environment created by antibiotic treatment. C. difficile is a spore-forming bacteria – able to form metabolically dormant endospores resistant to harsh environments – and phage infection. Evolutionary theory suggests that sporulation may have dramatic impacts on bacteria-phage dynamics, potentially driving unexpected – and unwanted – consequences for infections.
This project will leverage the Yorkshire Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership (YBDTP) groups’ expertise in experimental evolution (Harrison) and Clostridial cell biology and genetics (Fagan) to dissect the evolutionary interplay between predator and prey in real-time. This work will develop the understanding of the underpinnings necessary to make C. difficile phage therapy viable.
we will use experimental evolution, combined with genome sequencing and molecular genetics to determine how phage predation affects the efficiency of sporulation and how the ability to sporulate affects phage virulence.
Students will receive broad training in state-of-the-art bacterial genetics, experimental evolution, and phage biology. You will join a lab with a history of championing diversity and student independence and be embedded in a wider lab group of microbiologists in the School of Biosciences.
Apply here https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/leeds/yorkshire-bioscience-dtp-expression-of-interest-form
For a list of projects, click here https://www.whiterose-mechanisticbiology-dtp.ac.uk/yorkshire-bioscience-dtp-projects-for-october-2025/
For more phage-related research opportunities, click here https://jobs.thephage.xyz/
