ERA Research Internships
2025

Project 1. Enhancing the activity of clinically relevant antibiotics against E. coli using antineoplastic agents 

• Host: Leeds Beckett University
• Length and timeline: Two-week internship running from 8th to 19th September 2025.
• Primary supervisor: Dr Arya Gupta
• More information: Infections caused by multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria are difficult to treat, even more in immunocompromised hosts. Lack of effective strategies to treat MDR related infections could lead to common surgical procedures becoming high-risk and more deaths associated with antimicrobial resistance worldwide. The project will aim to characterise the antibiotic potentiating activity of an antineoplastic agent against the clinically relevant pathogen, E. coli. The objective is identifying a combination where the activity of an antibiotic has been enhanced. The key questions the project will look to address are: 
  • Is there synergistic activity with known antibiotics?
  • Does the antineoplastic agent possess antibacterial activity?
• Funding: This project has additional funding assigned to cover the cost of accommodation, travel, and food. 
• Important information: Antineoplastic agents are highly hazardous and cytotoxic as they are primarily used to treat cancer. This project is not suitable for students who are immunocompromised, pregnant, or planning a pregnancy during the academic year. However, if you are interested in working on a project along a similar theme of ‘enhancement of antibiotic activity’ contact the supervisor (a.gupta@leedsbeckett.ac.uk), so an alternative project may be designed.

Project 2. Neuropsychiatric symptoms in people with Parkinson’s disease: impact on quality of life.

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Primary supervisor: Dr Lucia Ricciardi
• More information: You will work with patients who have undergone deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery and analyse the brain’s connectivity using electroencephalography (EEG) data. This project aims to better understand how DBS affects neural networks and brain function. You will gain experience in (1) working with clinical populations in a clinical research setting in the hospital, (2) handling and interpreting clinical data, and (3) functional assessment using neuropsychological tests. 

Project 3. Producing cancer therapeutic drugs in tobacco plants.

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting campus)

• Length: Two-week internship

• Primary supervisor: Dr Audrey Teh

• More information: You will work on expressing and producing immune checkpoint inhibitors from tobacco plants to create cost-effective and accessible cancer therapeutics. You will gain experience in PCR, gel electrophoresis,  DNA transformation, plant molecular cloning, and flow cytometry. 

Project 4. Molecular Mechanisms of Platelets in Blood Clotting

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Primary supervisor: Dr Isabelle Salles-Crawley
• More information: During your placement you will be able to shadow current members of the platelet lab performing experiments in a laboratory. One member currently doing a PhD in my lab was a previous recipient of an ERA placement. This research internship will give you invaluable insight into what a career in research may look like. More specifically my lab is interested in molecular mechanisms associated with blood clotting with a particular focus on platelets. One arm of research is trying to understand how platelets works and become activated after a vascular injury. Another arm of my research is focusing on understanding how platelets can interact with white blood cells in particular neutrophils.

Project 5. Reflective practice with the Physician Associate, Advanced Clinical Practice and Clinical Diagnostic Lab teams. 

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length and timeline: Two-week internship from 30th June to 11th July 2025. 
• Primary supervisor: Mathavi Vijikanendra
• More information: The focus of this placement is around a qualitative research project exploring the theme of ‘reflecting in teams.’ You will play an active role in the analysis and contribute to the write-up. In addition to the research component, you will have the opportunity to observe teaching sessions from the Master’s in Physician Associate Studies and the Advanced Clinical Practice course, offering insight into postgraduate clinical education. The placement also includes a dedicated day in the diagnostic laboratory, where you will observe the work of various departments, including clinical chemistry, haematology, immunology, microbiology, virology, histopathology, and the PRU (Pathology Reference Unit). This will provide a broad overview of the essential roles these labs play in patient care and diagnosis.

Project 6. Understanding the role of antibody measurement in maternal and paediatric infectious disease research

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Primary supervisor: Tom Hall
• More information: The aim of the 2-week placement with us would be to gain laboratory experience in the area of antibody analysis, observing and gaining hands on experience of ELISA and Luminex assays, and an understanding of how these techniques are used to explore maternal and paediatric infectious disease immunology and the role of our work to facilitate vaccine development and licensure. The placement student will also gain and understanding in the different roles within academia, observing how technicians, academics and project managers work together to complete translational research projects. The placement student will get the opportunity to work with the laboratory manager, research scientists and talk with clinical study managers and clinical fellows to gain a wide understanding of the different roles available within an academic group. 

Project 7. Further investigation of anticancer p16 peptides 

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Eight-week studentship 
• Supervisors: Professor Dot Bennett and Dr Gina Abdelaal
• More information: Protein p16 is a cell-senescence effector and tumour suppressor encoded by familial melanoma gene CDKN2A1. Our group created a cell-penetrating peptide derived from p162, which could be added to human cells in culture and would selectively kill such cancer cells as we tested (especially melanoma cells and HeLa cervical cancer cells), with no effect on normal fibroblasts and an intermediate effect on normal melanocytes.  The peptide might therefore have value as an anticancer therapy with few side-effects, or as a co-therapy with other agents, but more work is needed.  To permit any preclinical research, we need more evidence on the peptide’s selectivity, and characterization of the mechanism of action of the peptide.  An ERA student could take part in this research and learn valuable cellular and molecular lab techniques, possibly including following treated cells by video with the Livecyte system available in the Image Research Facility. 
• Associated literature:

  Constantinou SM & Bennett DC (2024).  Cell senescence and the genetics of melanoma development.  Genes Chromos. Cancer 63, e23273.  https://doi.org/10.1002/gcc.23273  

  Soo JK, JT Castle & DC Bennett (2023).  Preferential killing of melanoma cells by a p16-related peptide.  Biol. Open, 12(8): bio059965.  https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.059965 

Project 8. Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) – developing evidence based treatment in a physiotherapy service.

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Primary supervisor: Dr Glenn Nielsen
• More information: Students will observe specialist FND neurology and physiotherapy clinics  and where possible support research data collection, data entry, and analysis. The FND Physiotherapy service consists of four physiotherapists, Kate Holt, Cameron Moss, Alex Phillips, and the team is led by Glenn Nielsen.
• Pre-requisite: Students may need to be registered as a clinical student and have DBS checks in order to attend NHS clinics. 

   

Project 9. Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week work shadowing placement
• Primary supervisor: Dr Catrin Moore
• More information: This project will explore the relationship between resistance in non-sterile samples from urinary tract infections and blood cultures/sterile site samples using microbiology data from St George’s University hospitals NHS foundation trust. We will examine the relationship between the prevalence of resistance between the samples and evaluate whether easier to collect, cheaper non-sterile samples can be used as a proxy for resistance in more expensive sterile samples in the same geographical area. This is potentially of great importance in places with few microbiology laboratories, scarce resources, and where obtaining sterile samples is expensive and challenging. There is preliminary industry data to suggest that resistance from urine may be a useful proxy for resistance in sterile samples.

Project 10. How can the cheek help the heart

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Primary supervisor: Dr Angeliki Asimaki
• More information: Sudden cardiac death (SCD) strikes without warning killing 100.000 British citizens every year. Currently, we have minimal ways to predict the risk and prevent this tragic event. We are focusing on two diseases called arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) and Brugada syndrome (BrS), major causes of SCD in all populations of the world. We have developed a technique where we analyse key protein distribution in simple cheek smears as a risk stratification tool for these SCD disease entities. The internship will introduce the candidate to this technique and the potential it has to save lives.

Project 11. The mechanisms involved in the regulation of lymphatic vasculature development

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Supervisors: Dr Mike Mills and Professor Pia Ostergaard
• More information: The lymphatic system has long been a neglected and poorly understood contributor to human health and disease. A more detailed understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of the lymphatic vasculature development and function is now emerging. This has led to novel insights into the involvement of lymphatic vessels in pathophysiology, not just in lymphatic specific diseases such as lymphoedema, but in other pathologies such as cardiovascular disease, infection and immunity, cancer, and probably obesity; some major challenges in healthcare today.  

  Typically, diagnosis and phenotyping of lymphoedema is achieved through clinical examination and family history, but this is limited. Our group has been very successful in discovering causal genes for lymphoedema and the impact of identified mutations (genetic loss of function) in causal genes, by looking at the growth and interactions between cells and proteins, as well as looking at macroscopic features of the people who exhibit these alterations with medical imaging techniques such as MRI and lymphoscintigraphy.

  What this placement involves 

  During the two-week placement, students will get to observe and engage with various aspects of the lymphatic research team’s work. The exact set of experiments to be performed and sessions to observe will be determined closer to the placement commencing but are expected to include: 

  • Lymphatic endothelial cell culture, including biological assays such as Western Blot and PCR 
  • the creation and/or imaging of tissue mimicking materials for MRI protocol development 
  • cell imaging studies within the imaging research facility 
  • the use of bioinformatics to search for genes leading to lymphatic malfunction  
  • visits to the clinical department to observe the clinical diagnosis and management of lymphoedema 

Project 12. PDE4 Expression in Tuberculosis: Uncovering Its Role in Disease Pathogenesis 

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship 
• Supervisor: Dr Deborah Chong
• More information:cMy name is Dr Deborah Chong and I’m a lecturer in the Institute for Infection and Immunity. My research is focussed on understanding how Tuberculosis (TB), a bacterial infection that typically affects the lungs, causes permanent lung scarring that ultimately affects patients’ ability to breathe. Currently, most treatment options for TB are focused on antibiotics to get rid of the bacterial infection, but there are no drugs available to stop the body’s host response from making scar tissue. This represents a major health problem as more people are surviving TB nowadays but are left with permanently damaged lungs. 

  Using cellular models of TB-induced lung damage, we have identified an enzyme called PDE4 that may drive scar tissue formation. However, it is unknown the expression level of this enzyme in patients with TB. This ERA studentship will be as hands-on as possible, so you will be able to conduct lab techniques (e.g. immunohistochemistry and microscopy) to investigate whether patients with TB have PDE4 in their diseased tissue. Findings from this project may inform us whether targeting PDE4 represents a new treatment option for patients with TB. 

Project 13. Development of a novel and affordable vaccine to tackle hepatitis A virus worldwide

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: 8-week studentship between mid June-mid August 2025. 
• Primary Supervisor: Dr Elisabetta Groppelli
• More information: Although inactivated vaccines for hepatitis A virus (HAV) have been available since the mid 1990s and WHO recommends routine HAV vaccination, their use is severely limited by high price and low availability, so that every year over 150 million HAV infections occur worldwide. The burden of disease is strongly felt at both individual and healthcare system levels. Hospitalisation is required for 40-60% of adults, and ~20% of patients experience a prolonged and relapsed course that can last 6 months. In 2016-18 in the UK, the cost of a single outbreak that affected 800 adults was more than £1,500,000. On average worldwide, infections have been calculated to cost $6,382 for adults (7.5 days hospitalisation) and $1,857 for paediatric patients (3.5 days hospitalisation). 

  The high price and low availability of the licensed HAV vaccines are due to the type of vaccine, inactivated virus, that relies on virus growth and chemical inactivation, which are overall slow with poor yields, lengthy and costly. Therefore, our new vaccine uses recombinant DNA technology to generate virus-like particles (VLPs) that possess identical antigenicity as the virus, but dispense of viral infection for their manufacturing. This technology is similar to the recently licenced Gardasil and Cervarix that are already making papilloma virus elimination a possibility.  

  As proof of principle, we have generated HAV VLPs using a mammalian cells expression system and confirmed their potential as vaccine candidate by analysing their physical and antigenic features. Although mammalian cells are the natural host of the virus and guaranteed native HAV protein expression and assembly, they are not widely used for vaccines manufacturing. Therefore, now, this project aims to investigate the expression of HAV VLPs in insect cells, which are more amenable for vaccine manufacturing at large-scale and low-cost. 

  Techniques involved: cell culture of insect and mammalian cell lines, DNA transfection, SDS-PAGE; Western Blotting; ELISA; VLP purification  

Project 14. Understanding the behaviour of cancer cells

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Primary supervisor: Dr Anissa Chikh
• More information: Our lab investigates the role of key proteins that are dysregulated in skin cancer, with the aim of uncovering their functions and evaluating their potential as therapeutic targets. Using a range of molecular and cellular biology techniques, we aim to better understand the biological mechanisms driving cancer progression.

  During this placement, the student will:

  • Join the research team and engage in discussions with current lab members, including a PhD student (based overseas) to gain perspective on international research collaboration, and a postdoctoral researcher (PDRA) who will share insights on a research career.

  • Attend a departmental seminar and lab meeting as an observer to experience the academic research environment.

  • Undertake a mini-project, involving cell culture, protein extraction, and Western blotting, gaining valuable hands-on experience in experimental techniques.

Project 15. Development of affordable point of care diagnostics for global health 

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Supervisors: Dr Henry Staines and David Clarke
• More information: The group of Staines and Clark have a long standing interest in the development and evaluation of affordable diagnostics for use in resource limited settings, focusing on point-of-care tests. Currently we are working on several projects including human papilloma virus (HPV) detection (used for cervical cancer screening), and diagnostics for Dengue, COVID-19 and influenza. This opportunity will allow a student to shadow researchers in our laboratory and learn about the process of diagnostic test development.

Project 16. The use of 3D cell culture models to assess the progression of prostate cancer

• Host: City St George’s University of London (Tooting Campus)
• Length: Two-week internship
• Supervisors: Dr Ferran Valderrama and Dr Clara Cieza-Borrella
• More information: Using our current diagnostic and prognostic platform based on 3D cell culture models of prostate cancer (PC), we are now developing a system for drug screening aiming to identify small molecules that target proteins involved in the progression of the disease. We are characterising a series of clinically available chemotherapeutic drugs (docetaxel – doc, cabacitaxel – cab, enzalutamide, and abiraterone) in terms of their ability to stop cell proliferation and migration of tumoral cells. We analyse these features using a range of microscopy techniques including time lapse and confocal microscopy combined with classic cell and molecular biology approaches including 3D cell culture, western blot, and immunofluorescence.The goal is to identify targets for therapeutics aiming to reduce the burden in treatment and the progression of the disease.  Internship aim: Participate in the characterisation of doc and cab, drugs affecting the cell microtubules, to analyse their effects on cell proliferation and migration in a cell model of Prostate Cancer.