The University of Leicester College of Life Sciences is offering PhD studentships for 2027 entry, providing an opportunity for prospective doctoral researchers to undertake advanced research in Population Health Sciences, Genetics, and Healthcare.

The studentships cover four distinct research projects addressing important questions in diabetes and metabolic health, bacteriophage genome biology, nutrition and hearing health inequalities, and perinatal palliative care.

Applicants are invited to review all four available projects and identify the research topic and supervisory team that best matches their academic background and research interests.

The application deadline is 5 October 2026, and the successful studentships are scheduled to begin on 4 January 2027.

The opportunity is particularly relevant to prospective PhD researchers interested in health sciences, public health, epidemiology, nutrition, genetics, molecular biology, healthcare research, health inequalities, and related interdisciplinary fields.

What Are the University of Leicester College of Life Sciences PhD Studentships?

The University of Leicester College of Life Sciences is offering doctoral studentships linked to four specific research projects.

Rather than providing a single broad PhD topic, the opportunity allows applicants to choose from four defined projects. Each project has its own research question, supervisors, methodology and expected contribution to the relevant field.

The four projects are:

1. Exploring ethnic differences in adipose tissue composition and characteristics after weight loss in people with type 2 diabetes
2. Dissection of the usage and function of unique genome architecture encoded by Burkholderia phage Matilda
3. Diet, insulin resistance and hearing loss in England: investigating a socioeconomic pathway in older adults
4. Perinatal palliative care in practice: an ethnographic study

Projects 1 and 3 are within Population Health Sciences, Project 2 is within Genetics, and Project 4 is within Healthcare.

Project 1: Ethnic Differences in Adipose Tissue After Weight Loss in Type 2 Diabetes

Research area: Population Health Sciences

Supervisors

• Dr Gráinne Whelehan
• Professor Louise Goff

Project title

Exploring ethnic differences in adipose tissue composition and characteristics after weight loss in people with type 2 diabetes

This PhD project focuses on the relationship between ethnicity, adiposity, metabolic health and type 2 diabetes remission.

Type 2 diabetes disproportionately affects people of Black African and Caribbean ethnicity in the UK, who can develop the condition at lower levels of overall adiposity than White European populations.

Interestingly, the source notes that Black African populations can have a more favourable distribution of adiposity, including lower levels of visceral and hepatic fat. This creates an important scientific question because conventional models often associate ectopic fat accumulation with the development and remission of type 2 diabetes.

The project therefore seeks to understand why responses to intensive weight-loss interventions may differ between ethnic populations.

Why Is This Research Important?

Intensive dietary weight-loss interventions, including total diet replacement, have demonstrated substantial success in inducing remission of type 2 diabetes, particularly among predominantly White European populations.

However, emerging real-world evidence from the NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission Programme suggests that improvements in blood glucose control and remission rates may be lower among Black African and Caribbean populations.

The reasons for these differences remain unclear.

The proposed PhD will investigate whether differences in response are related to:

• The amount of weight lost
• Changes in adipose tissue distribution
• Differences in adipose tissue characteristics
• Changes in visceral fat
• Changes in hepatic fat
• Changes in pancreatic fat
• Adipocyte characteristics
• Tissue metabolites
• Adipokines
• Inflammatory cytokines
• Substrate utilisation
• Basal metabolic rate
• Cardiometabolic risk markers

Research Design

The project will use a two-group observational design comparing Black African and Caribbean and White European men and women with type 2 diabetes who undergo a 12-week intensive weight-loss intervention.

The intervention will target approximately 10% body-weight reduction.

The primary outcome will be the change in HbA1c, which will be compared between the ethnic groups following the intervention.

Researchers will also investigate changes in:

• Total body weight
• Fat mass
• Fat-free mass
• Visceral fat
• Hepatic fat
• Pancreatic fat
• Other aspects of body composition

Magnetic resonance imaging will be used to quantify specific ectopic fat depots.

Subcutaneous adipose tissue biopsies will also be analysed to investigate biological mechanisms associated with differences in metabolic response.

Potential Contribution of the Project

The research aims to determine whether reductions in ectopic fat and adipose tissue remodelling contribute to improvements in glycaemic control equally across ethnic groups.

The findings could contribute to understanding whether existing diabetes remission strategies adequately address the biological characteristics of populations disproportionately affected by type 2 diabetes.

The project could also provide evidence relevant to:

• NHS diabetes remission services
• Precision medicine
• Diabetes prevention and management
• Metabolic health
• Health inequalities
• Ethnic differences in disease progression and treatment response

The project description identifies this as an important gap because many existing remission strategies have been developed largely from evidence involving White European populations.

Project 2: Burkholderia Phage Matilda Genome Architecture

Research area: Genetics

Supervisors

• Dr Jessica Lewis
• Dr Andrew Millard

Project title

Dissection of the usage and function of unique genome architecture encoded by Burkholderia phage Matilda

The second PhD project moves into genetics, microbiology and molecular biology.

It focuses on jumbo bacteriophages, a group of bacteriophages characterised by unusually large genomes that can provide greater independence from their bacterial hosts.

The project centres on a recently isolated jumbo phage known as φMatilda, which targets the lung pathogen Burkholderia cenocepacia.

What Makes the Genome Interesting?

The project description highlights a distinctive genome architecture in φMatilda.

The genome contains two large bidirectional elements at its termini. These elements predominantly encode hypothetical proteins.

They are surrounded by large inverted repeats measuring approximately:

• 1.3 kilobases
• 18 kilobases

Although bidirectional elements and inverted repeats have been observed in some phage genomes, the combination and scale of these features have not previously been described in any organism according to the project description.

The unusual architecture raises questions about whether these regions have an important biological function.

What Will the PhD Research Investigate?

The project aims to determine:

• The function of the terminal genome elements
• Their importance during infection
• Whether the inverted repeats cause physical rearrangement of the phage chromosome
• Whether the genome conformation is maintained across different bacterial hosts
• Which host factors influence genome architecture
• How the phage genome behaves during early infection
• Whether structural genome rearrangements are necessary for successful infection

Researchers will generate phage deletion mutants targeting the bidirectional and inverted repeat sequences.

The effects of these mutations on:

• Genome stability
• Infection dynamics
• Genome conformation

will then be assessed.

Research Techniques

The project proposes a combination of advanced research approaches, including:

• Transcriptomics
• Microscopy
• DNA conformation capture
• Hi-C
• Phage genetic manipulation
• Host mutant generation
• Infection experiments
• Genome architecture analysis

The research could contribute to understanding the biology of jumbo phages and provide broader insights into DNA structure and genome organisation.

Project 3: Diet, Insulin Resistance and Hearing Loss in Older Adults

Research area: Population Health Sciences

Supervisors

• Dr Dalia Tsimpida
• Professor Louise Goff

Project title

Diet, insulin resistance and hearing loss in England: investigating a socioeconomic pathway in older adults

The third project combines nutritional epidemiology, metabolic health, hearing health and social epidemiology.

It examines whether diet and metabolic health may help explain socioeconomic inequalities in hearing loss among older adults in England.

Why Study Diet and Hearing Loss?

Hearing loss affects more than nine million adults in England and is strongly patterned by socioeconomic circumstances.

According to the project description, people in the most disadvantaged groups can be up to twice as likely to experience hearing decline in later life.

However, the mechanisms behind this socioeconomic inequality are not fully understood.

The project proposes that diet could represent an important and potentially modifiable pathway.

The inner ear requires a continuous glucose supply. Poor glycaemic control can damage the small blood vessels supplying the cochlea, potentially affecting the auditory cells that depend on them.

The project further identifies diets high in refined carbohydrates as a potential contributor to insulin resistance and chronic inflammation, which are associated with cochlear vascular injury.

At the same time, dietary quality is socially patterned, with poorer diets more prevalent among lower socioeconomic groups.

This creates a potential pathway linking socioeconomic circumstances, diet, metabolic health and hearing outcomes.

Using the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

The project will use data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).

ELSA is a nationally representative cohort of adults aged 50 and over and includes information such as:

• Objective audiometric assessments
• HbA1c
• Dietary measures
• Other biomarker information
• Repeated measurements across multiple waves

The research will proceed in three major stages.

Stage 1: Developing a Dietary Metabolic Risk Index

The student will construct and validate a dietary metabolic risk index.

This index will then be examined in relation to:

• HbA1c
• BMI

Stage 2: Examining Hearing Decline

Mixed-effects modelling will be used to investigate whether the dietary metabolic risk index predicts hearing decline while accounting for important confounding factors.

Stage 3: Causal Mediation Analysis

The project will then use causal mediation analysis to determine whether the dietary-metabolic pathway accounts for part of the socioeconomic gradient in hearing loss.

Additional analyses will be stratified by:

• Deprivation
• Sex
• Age

Potential Impact

The project is presented as the first study to integrate the social epidemiology of hearing loss with nutritional epidemiology using a UK longitudinal cohort.

Its findings could contribute to evidence informing:

• NHS Health Checks
• Dietary guidance
• Hearing health policy
• Prevention strategies
• Health inequalities research
• Nutritional epidemiology
• Healthy ageing

The project combines the supervisory expertise of Dr Dalia Tsimpida in hearing health inequalities and Professor Louise Goff in dietary composition and insulin sensitivity.

Project 4: Perinatal Palliative Care in Practice

Research area: Healthcare

Supervisors

• Dr Katie Gallagher
• Dr Sarah Seaton

Project title

Perinatal palliative care in practice: an ethnographic study

The fourth PhD project focuses on perinatal palliative care, neonatal mortality, parental support, healthcare decision-making and health inequalities.

It proposes an ethnographic study examining how perinatal palliative care is delivered in practice.

Why Is This Research Important?

The project description reports that approximately 1,200 babies died during the neonatal period in 2023, equivalent to 2.9 deaths per 1,000 live births.

The neonatal period refers to the first 28 days of life.

The project also highlights differences in neonatal mortality according to ethnicity, with particularly high rates reported among babies of Pakistani, Black African and Bangladeshi ethnicity compared with babies of White ethnicity.

Deprivation further compounds these inequalities.

Causes of Neonatal Death

The project identifies several major causes of neonatal death, including:

• Complications of prematurity
• Congenital anomalies
• Infections
• Complications arising during labour

For families whose baby is diagnosed with a congenital anomaly, the diagnosis may occur during pregnancy.

Prenatal diagnosis can have a significant emotional and psychological effect on families and may contribute to distress and depression among mothers.

Parents may also need additional information to understand the diagnosis and navigate uncertainty even after receiving counselling about fetal anomalies.

What Will the Perinatal Palliative Care PhD Investigate?

The project proposes ethnographic research focused on what perinatal palliative care looks like in real-world practice.

The research will examine:

• Information sharing
• Parental support
• Decision-making
• Care practices
• Access to care
• Differences in service provision
• Differences between families from different ethnic backgrounds
• Differences between families from different socioeconomic backgrounds
• Potential health inequalities in perinatal palliative care

The research will be conducted in one NHS Trust in an ethnically diverse part of England, with the intention of ensuring representation of families from different backgrounds.

Potential Impact of the Research

The project aims to generate insight into perinatal palliative care practice and work with relevant stakeholders to develop guidance that could support national implementation.

Potential areas of impact include:

• Parental mental health
• Care choices for babies following birth
• Healthcare decision-making
• Information provision
• Palliative care services
• Health equity
• National healthcare guidance

Ultimately, the project seeks to contribute to future perinatal palliative care provision so that families can receive appropriate and equitable support during an extremely challenging period.

PhD Studentship Funding and Financial Support

One of the major features of these University of Leicester College of Life Sciences studentships is the funding package.

The studentships provide:

3.5 Years of Tuition Fees

The studentships cover 3.5 years of tuition fees at UK fee rates.

3.5 Years of Stipend

Students will receive a stipend for 3.5 years at UKRI rates.

For the 2026/27 academic year, the stated stipend is:

£21,805 per year

The stipend will be paid in monthly instalments.

This provides financial support during the funded doctoral study period.

Can International Students Apply?

Yes.

The University of Leicester opportunity specifically states that international students are welcome to apply for all projects.

However, there is an important financial condition for international applicants.

The studentship covers tuition fees at UK fee rates, while international students are responsible for paying the difference between UK and overseas tuition fees.

For the 2026/27 academic year, the stated annual fee difference is:

£19,012

Therefore, prospective international applicants should carefully assess their ability to cover this additional tuition cost for the duration of the programme.

International students must also cover costs associated with:

• Travel
• Visa
• NHS surcharge

These costs are explicitly identified as the responsibility of the student.

How to Choose a PhD Project

Applicants should carefully review all four research projects before submitting an application.

The four projects cover substantially different academic disciplines.

If your interests are in:

Diabetes, nutrition, metabolic health, body composition, ethnicity and health inequalities:
Project 1 may be particularly relevant.

Genetics, bacteriophages, microbiology, genome architecture and molecular biology:
Project 2 focuses on these areas.

Nutrition, epidemiology, insulin resistance, hearing health and socioeconomic inequalities:
Project 3 combines these research areas.

Healthcare, ethnography, neonatal care, palliative care, parental support and health inequalities:
Project 4 addresses these topics.

Applicants should consider their academic preparation, research interests, methodological experience and long-term research goals when identifying the project that aligns with their background.

Supervisors and Project Selection

Applicants are specifically instructed to select their preferred project and include the correct supervisor name and preferred project title on the online application form under the section titled “supervisors/project.”

This is an important application detail because the four projects are associated with different PhD programmes.

The application instructions specify:

• Projects 1 and 3: Population Health Sciences PhD
• Project 2: Genetics PhD
• Project 4: Healthcare PhD

Applicants should therefore make sure they use the correct PhD Apply Now link for their selected project.

Application Deadline

The application deadline for the College of Life Sciences PhD studentships is:

5 October 2026

Prospective applicants should allow sufficient time to:

1. Review all four projects.
2. Identify their preferred research project.
3. Review the relevant supervisor or supervisors.
4. Check the applicable PhD programme.
5. Review the University’s application guidance.
6. Prepare the required application materials.
7. Enter the correct supervisor and project title.
8. Submit the application before the deadline.

The programme is scheduled to begin on:

4 January 2027

The opportunity information identifies 5 October 2026 as the application deadline and 4 January 2027 as the start date.

Who Should Consider Applying?

This opportunity may be relevant to prospective doctoral researchers with academic or research interests in areas such as:

• Population health
• Public health
• Epidemiology
• Diabetes research
• Metabolic health
• Nutrition
• Health inequalities
• Ethnicity and health
• Precision medicine
• Body composition
• Genetics
• Molecular biology
• Microbiology
• Bacteriophage biology
• Genome architecture
• Genomics
• Healthcare research
• Palliative care
• Perinatal and neonatal healthcare
• Ethnographic research
• Socioeconomic inequalities
• Hearing health
• Healthy ageing

The four projects have different methodological approaches, so applicants should examine the specific research description of their preferred project rather than assuming that all four projects have the same academic or technical requirements.

International and African Applicants

The opportunity is particularly noteworthy for international applicants because the source explicitly states that international students are welcome to apply.

The supplied information does not establish a nationality or continental restriction. Therefore, applicants from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania and other regions are not excluded on the basis of the information provided.

However, international applicants must account for the additional tuition fee difference and other costs specified by the University.

For applicants from African countries, including Ethiopia, the key financial consideration is therefore not nationality-based eligibility but the requirement to cover the difference between UK and overseas tuition fees, together with travel, visa and NHS surcharge expenses.

Why These Four Projects Are Significant

Although the projects are located in different disciplines, they share a broader focus on understanding important health and biological questions.

The Population Health Sciences projects examine how biological, nutritional and socioeconomic factors influence health outcomes.

Project 1 examines differences in diabetes remission and metabolic response across ethnic populations.

Project 3 examines whether diet and metabolic health can help explain socioeconomic inequalities in hearing loss.

The Genetics project investigates an unusual form of genome architecture in a bacteriophage and its potential role during infection.

The Healthcare project examines how perinatal palliative care is delivered and whether differences in ethnicity and socioeconomic circumstances affect access and experiences.

Together, the projects demonstrate the breadth of doctoral research available through the College of Life Sciences.

Important Application Considerations

Before submitting an application, prospective students should pay particular attention to the following points.

1. Select only the project you intend to apply for

The opportunity asks applicants to review all four projects and select their preferred project.

2. Use the correct supervisor information

The application must include the appropriate supervisor name and preferred project title.

3. Select the correct PhD programme

The four projects are distributed across three PhD programmes:

• Population Health Sciences
• Genetics
• Healthcare

4. Review the University’s application guidance

The opportunity specifically instructs applicants to follow the application advice under “How to Apply” before submitting the application.

5. Consider international tuition costs

International students are welcome, but the funding does not cover the difference between UK and overseas fees.

For 2026/27, that difference is stated as £19,012 per year.

6. Consider additional costs

International applicants should also budget for travel, visa and NHS surcharge costs.

7. Check the detailed entry requirements

The opportunity page contains an “Entry requirements” section, but the specific requirements are not included in the supplied information. Applicants should therefore consult the University’s official application page for the complete requirements before submitting.

Key Dates

Event	Date
Application deadline	5 October 2026
PhD start date	4 January 2027
Funding duration	3.5 years
Stipend for 2026/27	£21,805 per year
International tuition fee difference for 2026/27	£19,012 per year

Click HERE to read more and apply

Final Takeaway

The University of Leicester College of Life Sciences PhD Studentships offer doctoral research opportunities across four highly distinct projects in Population Health Sciences, Genetics and Healthcare.

The research spans major contemporary questions, including ethnic differences in type 2 diabetes remission, the biological function of unusual bacteriophage genome architecture, the relationship between diet and hearing health inequalities, and the delivery of perinatal palliative care.

The studentships provide 3.5 years of tuition fees at UK fee rates and a 3.5-year stipend, with the 2026/27 stipend specified as £21,805 per year.

International students are explicitly welcome to apply. However, prospective international applicants must carefully consider the additional £19,012 annual difference between UK and overseas tuition fees for 2026/27, as well as travel, visa and NHS surcharge expenses.

Applicants must choose their preferred research project, identify the appropriate supervisor, select the correct PhD programme and follow the University’s application guidance.

The application deadline is 5 October 2026, with the successful PhD studentships scheduled to commence on 4 January 2027.

Click HERE for more scholarship opportunities.