PhD Studentship: Astrocyte-Microglia Crosstalk in Alzheimer’s Disease

Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship in the UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, to start on 28^th September 2026.

Project: This PhD project will investigate how astrocytes and microglia contribute to synaptic loss and aggregate pathology in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

It is becoming increasingly clear that non-neuronal cells critically contribute to region-specific synapse loss and dysfunction in AD. While microglia are emerging as the central cellular mediators of synapse elimination (for e.g., Hong et al., Science 2016, Rueda-Carrasco et al., EMBOJ 2023, De Schepper et al., Nature Neuroscience 2023, Crowley et al., bioRxiv 2024), our recent work suggests that astrocytes may act upstream to confer the region-specific synapse vulnerability (Sokolova et al., bioRxiv 2024). Mechanistically, we find that these astrocytes, which have marked dysfunctional perisynaptic processes, secrete MFG-E8, which then promote microglial synapse engulfment and synapse loss in their local milieu.

The PhD project will build on these findings and aim to uncover astrocyte-microglia crosstalk in AD. The student will dissect molecular mechanisms underlying this cell-cell crosstalk including MFG-E8 using various cutting-edge tools in post-mortem human tissues, human cells and various mouse models including spatial transcriptomics, single-cell transcriptomics, subcellular or secretome proteomics, in vivo manipulation tools, and/or super-resolution microscopy.

Eligibility: Applicants who have or expect to obtain a 1^st class honours or an upper 2:1 in their undergraduate degree in neuroscience, neuroimmunology, immunology, molecular biology, biomedical sciences or related disciplines, as well as a significant level of wet-lab research experience in biology or related field. An MSc/MRes is favoured but not a pre-requisite.

The studentship is funded through the Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK) for 4 years and will cover UK university tuition fees (home fees only). The studentship will also pay an annual stipend based on the standard ARUK set stipend rate. Overseas students may apply but will receive funding at Home rates. As such they will need to apply for additional funding or show evidence of their ability to pay the fee shortfall for the full duration of the study.