University of Nottingham
Job title:
PhD Studentship: Optimising pre- and rehabilitation strategies to improve the physiological resilience of older surgical patients (MED2012)
Company
University of Nottingham
Job description
Location: UK Other
Closing Date: Friday 28 June 2024
Reference: MED2012Principal supervisors:Prof Bethan Phillips (School of Medicine) – [email protected]Funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust (https://dunhillmedical.org.uk/) as one of their Multiple PhD Studentship Awards, we have a fully-funded (stipend at UKRI rates, PhD fees (for UK nationals only) and research costs) three-year full-time PhD available to start on the 1st October 2024.The overall theme of this PhD programme is enhancing the physiological resilience of older adults, with a specific focus on skeletal muscle. The successful candidate for this specific PhD will join two other students as part of this programme, with the programme designed to offer peer-support and encourage multi-disciplinary, translational research.Programme description: Loss of resilience describes enhanced vulnerability to, and impaired recovery from stress events when compared to a robust [youthful/healthy] state; and is commonly encountered with advancing age. With ageing populations around the world, and the associated rise in years spent in ill-health, there is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms underpinning this loss of physiological resilience, and potential strategies to mitigate these declines. Although a recent national GIRFT (Getting It Right First Time) report suggests that improving frailty management could save the NHS
£600-million/year, furthering understanding of the biological mechanisms driving reduced resilience to inform on precision mitigation strategies (i.e., for the right people at the right time) could in fact have a much bigger impact. This impact would favour not only healthcare systems but also older individuals, their support networks and society as a whole. Evidence suggests that skeletal muscle deterioration, including metabolic and functional decline, is a core driver of reduced resilience in older adults both with and without disease. Indeed, skeletal muscle weakness is at the fore of both frailty (the clinical term encompassing loss of resilience) and sarcopenia (age-associated losses of muscle mass and function) definitions. A devastating consequence of reduced resilience is that the time people spend in good health (their health-span) is now much shorter than overall lifespan; an issue that we aim to help address through this collection of PhD’s.PhD description:In addition to rehabilitation, which has long been employed as method to enhance recovery from clinical stress events, there is burgeoning clinical and research interest in prehabilitation, an approach employed to prepare individuals for these events. Based at the University of Nottingham Medical School at Derby (UNMSD; Royal Derby Hospital Centre), this PhD will consider the importance of, and methods for the preservation of muscle mass and function in older patient cohorts. With elective surgery a clear and common example of a stress event encountered by older adults, and recognising that physiological resilience is not just preparedness for stress events but also the ability to recover from them, this PhD will focus on practicable pre- and rehabilitation strategies in older surgical patients. Exploring the interaction between novel contractile strategies and nutritional intake, as well as the mechanistic basis of any adaptation, results from this PhD will provide an evidence-base for strategies to be implemented as an adjuvant to standard care in the peri-operative period of older surgical patients. All these PhD’s will benefit from the expertise and experience of multi-disciplinary supervisory teams comprised of discovery scientists and clinical academics. Further, all these PhD’s will also provide training in a broad range of topic-specific skill sets (e.g., human physiology assessments through to ‘wet-lab’/molecular analysis) as well as more generic career-development opportunities (e.g., patient and public involvement and engagement (PPI-E), dissemination, statistics).Further information:Applicants should have either:
- a minimum of a 2.1 in a relevant undergraduate degree (e.g., Exercise Science, Physiology, Biology, Biomedical Sciences (non-exhaustive list)), OR
- a minimum of a 2.2 undergraduate degree and a relevant Master’s degree.
The ideal candidate will also have experience of human physiology and/or laboratory research, and an understanding of ageing physiology.Informal enquiries may be addressed to the programme lead and supervisor for this PhD: Prof Bethan Phillips ([email protected]).To apply, candidates should send their CV and a short cover letter (
1000 words) outlining why they are applying to be part of this PhD programme and what they believe they can offer to: [email protected]. The email subject line should be: “DMT PHD APPLICATION”. Candidates should also provide the contact details for 2 referees, one of whom should be their most recent academic supervisor (or line manager in relevant employment, if applicable). Please note, offers of study will be subject to 2 satisfactory references being received.Closing Date for Applications: Friday 28th June 2024, 5pm (UK time)Provisional Interview Date: 18th July 2024If you will not be able to attend an interview at the University of Nottingham Medical School at Derby on this date, please make this known when you email your application to Prof Bethan Phillips so alternative arrangements can be considered if possible.PhD Start Date: 1st October 2024, or as soon as possible thereafter.
Expected salary
Location
Derby
Job date
Sat, 22 Jun 2024 03:38:14 GMT
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