About the Project
Memory loss imposes a significant challenge of wellbeing and safety for people living with Alzheimer’s disease. As the disease progresses, memory loss becomes more severe, and individuals may forget important information about familiar places and people. An early sympton in the disease involves difficulty in remembering what recent events at which places. This type of memory symptom can be modelled in genetic rodent models of Alzheimer’s disease for understanding the underlying brain mechanisms.
One of the current rodent models of Alzheimer’s disease uses a knock-in approach that creates amyloid beta pathology without over-expression of the amyloid precursor protein (PubMed Identifier, PMID: 24728269). Using this model, we recently reported an age-dependent progression of cognitive and behavioural phenotypes of symptoms. We identified a key cognitive process that is affected at a young age in mice with accumulating amyloid beta pathology in the brain and this effect occurs before memory loss becomes evident (PMID: 36566248).
This PhD project will focus on understanding the neuronal and synaptic mechanisms that underlie the affected cognitive process in an early phase of Alzheimer’s disease. We will combine synaptome imaging technology (PMID: 32527927), behavioural approaches, and genetic models (PMID: 29045836) to label memory-activated neurons and synapses. We will determine the biomarkers in the hippocampus, cortex, and via brain-wide mapping (PMID: 39096907) for detecting the functional change for memory retention.
Research techniques will involve Home Office license training, rodent in vivo behaviour, tissue processing, high-resolution microscopy, computational image analyses, experimental design, data analysis, and statistics.
Supervisor’s website: https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/persons/szu-han-wang
How to apply
This 4 year PhD project is part of a competition funded by EASTBIO BBSRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP). Detailed guidance on the application process, and the EASTBIO Application and Reference Forms can be found here How to Apply | EastBio Doctoral Training Partnership | Biology
Please email your completed EASTBIO Application Form along with a copy of your academic transcripts (as one pdf) to ccbs-phd@ed.ac.uk. Please remember to put the project title and supervisor in the subject line.
You should also contact your referees and ask them to email their references (on the EASTBIO reference form template) to ccbs-phd@ed.ac.uk. Ask your referees to put the project title and supervisor in the subject line.
Full applications and all references to be received by midday on 15 December 2025