iCASE Studentships 2026

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.

Image-based bacterial phenotyping and antimicrobial drug discovery using smart high-throughput super-resolution microscopy

Dr Séamus Holden (University of Warwick)
Dr Sam Swift (Cairn Research Ltd.)

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest developing threats to global public health. In this PhD project you will develop and apply smart microscopy tools to power the next generation of antibiotic drug discovery.

First, you will improve the performance of bacterial high-throughput microscopy in a collaboration between the Holden lab at the University of WarwickLink opens in a new window and Cairn Research LtdLink opens in a new window. This will include developing an open-source 96-well plate loader and integrating it with our new “RAPTOR” high-throughput super-resolution microscope. Then, you will use this instrument and deep learning analysis to 1) identify novel cell division proteins in Bacillus subtilis by genome-wide screening as potential targets of new anti-microbials and 2) to screen drug libraries for novel antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This exciting PhD project would equally suit an undergraduate or master student in physics, engineering or computer science with a strong interest in biology/ biomedicine, or a microbiologist, biochemist or biomedical scientist with a strong interest in engineering and quantitative biology.