PhD in Regenerative Medicine and Devices
Brighton, United Kingdom
DURATION
3 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
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EARLIEST START DATE
Aug 2025
TUITION FEES
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STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
Key Summary
Scholarships
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Introduction
The Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices aims to achieve pioneering, patient-driven treatments and technological innovation in regenerative medicine and medical devices.
Responding to some of the most recognised socio-economic challenges, the centre focuses on scientific knowledge, diagnostics and treatments based on regenerative medicine and devices in five main priority areas: neurodegenerative diseases and sensory dysfunctions, diabetes, wound healing, cardiovascular diseases and musculoskeletal diseases.
What we do
The Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices focuses its medical research expertise on major clinical conditions and developing treatments. Our research brings deep scientific knowledge, allowing breakthrough innovation across clinical applications and key enabling technologies, as well as developing the role of public and patient participation.
Who we work with
The widespread collaborative network established in recent years by the CRMD researchers makes the centre an international hub where researcher institutions, clinicians, companies, charities and policymakers can find a wide range of expertise and state-of-the-art facilities.
Clinical collaborations
The treatments developed by researchers at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices find their closest links to clinics through the practice of the University Leaf Hospital, Eastbourne, but also have links to the university’s hospitals and hospitals across Europe. At Leaf Hospital a large number of patients are treated for their foot ulcers every year providing benchmark knowledge about the process of healing and the use of wound dressings. Insights in the effect of biomaterials on the healing process in foot ulcers are obtained through a systematic study linking the wound features to the type of wound dressing used by the practitioner.
Business collaborations
Strong links with companies have led to the development of technologies currently undergoing industrial feasibility studies in all the main research areas. Specialised cell culture substrates for the pre-clinical handling of stem cells are under development in collaboration with Tissue Click Ltd. The exploitation potential of novel soybean-based wound dressing is currently pursued through Brighton Wound Care Ltd a partner company with Meilian Medical Technology, China. CRMD is a partner in EC funded projects together with the UK and European companies with a mission in tissue engineering, nanomedicine and biosensors.
Professional collaborations
Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices researchers are members and/or sit on the scientific advisory committees of scientific societies, charities and policymakers including the European Society for Biomaterials, the UK Society for Biomaterials, the ETP on Nanomedicine – Regenerative Medicine Group, the Orthopaedic Research UK, the Biomedical Applications Division – Biomaterials Committee, IOM3, London.
The centre is proud to host a number of visiting scientists as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students from all over the world. The scientific and cultural enrichment that both we and our guests enjoy is an invaluable asset for our future and that of our partners.
Program Outcome
Regenerative medicine PhD
Our Regenerative medicine PhD students are based within, and members of, our specialist research Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices.
The research centre has a long-standing reputation for pioneering, patient-driven treatments and technological innovation in regenerative medicine. We welcome students across our priority research areas, further information on which can be found on our website under Clinical applications. These include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, musculoskeletal trauma and diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and sensory dysfunctions, and wound healing.
Our work includes the development of key enabling technologies, multidisciplinary research interests surrounding the structure, design and functional performance of advanced materials for use in biological and environmental systems. This includes biomaterials capable of full integration with the surrounding tissue, development of mathematical models and in-vitro cell models to predict biological responses.
We welcome expressions of interest from graduates wanting to join us in this work. These specialisms have allowed us to complete numerous projects, and publish research with PhD team members. These can be explored more fully through the Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices' page on our university research website.
We have welcomed many PhD students to the centre and given them their first steps towards work in postdoctoral research, medicine and industry.
Key information
As a Regenerative Medicine PhD student, you will benefit from
- being embedded in a key project theme within the Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices
- state-of-the-art research facilities, specific to your work, on the university's Moulsecoomb campus. These include, for example, geochemical and geotechnical laboratories, microscopy laboratories (optical and scanning electron microscopes), specialist microbial and water quality laboratories
- a supervisory team comprising two or sometimes three members of academic staff. Depending on your research specialism you may also have an additional external supervisor from another school, research institution, or industry.
- desk space and access to a desktop PC, either in one of the postgraduate offices on the sixth floor of the award-winning Cockcroft Building.
- access to a range of electronic resources via the university’s Online Library, as well as to the physical book and journal collections housed within the Aldrich Library and other campus libraries.
Academic environment
You will be working within one of the specialist areas that are the expertise of the Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices.
As a member of the Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices, you are a member also of the School of Applied Sciences along with a community of over 30 PhD students and have access to the expertise of other scientists to expand your interests and understanding of career possibilities. The school allows experts in numerous fields of research to collaborate on projects both within their disciplines and in truly cross-disciplinary research. Consequently, research projects can encompass the use of electrochemistry in biomedical research, bacterial responses to biomaterials, genomic analysis of gut microflora through computational modelling of drug delivery systems and carbon capture by inorganic complexes. This allows us to tackle global problems using multidisciplinary research approaches.
The school supports a number of research centres and research groups in the life sciences and we also ensure that we reach out to communities that will benefit from our work both locally and around the globe.