iCASE Studentships 2026
For iCASE studentships, students apply for a specific project.
Projects have been designed by supervisors from Warwick with an industry partner. Students spend a minimum of three months based with their industry partner:
Exploring the impact of defective interfering particles on oncolytic virus efficacy
Dr. Hannah Bridgewater (University of Warwick)
Dr. William Collier (OVO Biomanufacturing)
Dr Phillip Gould (OVO Biomanufacturing)
Oncolytic viruses (OVs) are a type of cancer immunotherapy that are genetically engineered to elicit an immune response specifically against the tumour cells, but not healthy cells. Defective interfering particles (DIPs) are viral particles that contain deletions, copybacks and/or duplications in the viral genome that result in viral particles that can infect host cells, so long as wild-type virus is present, but which are defective in viral replication. The proportion of DIPs compared to wild-type virus can vary from around 20-50% of the total. Importantly, it is currently unknown if DIPs aid immune activated killing of tumour cells or perturb OV efficacy. This PhD project aims to determine how DIPs impact OV efficacy through collaboration with OVO Biomanufacturing, world leading experts in providing technical solutions for viral vaccine development.