1)Project Title: Novel Water treatments for zoonotic pathogen Cryptosporidium
BBSRC SWBIO Studentship
Supervisors: Prof Jo Cable, Dr Anna Paziewska-Harris (School of Biosciences, Cardiff University) and DrCatrin Williams (School of Engineering, Cardiff University)
Cryptosporidium is an apicomplexan waterborne enteric parasite, causing diarrhea in over 7.6 million children a year. Self-limiting in the healthy individuals, often fatal in immunocompromised or malnourished, the disease claims over 200000 lives of under 2-year-olds per year only in developing countries. It is also a ‘blue-marble’ pathogen able to intrude into the developed world wherever breaches in surveillance or treatment of water supplies allow epidemics. With no treatment against it and no vaccine foreseeable in the near future, the only way to control Cryptosporidium is through water treatment. The transmissive stages, oocysts, are resistant to the classic chlorine treatment, and difficult to filter out of the water due to their small sizes. The only way treatment to inactivate them in drinking water is UV treatment, which also needs special equipment still missing in many treatment plants. Given its impact, it is little wonder that Cryptosporidium is treated as a bioterrorism agent, and the European Water Directive insists on shutting down the distribution plants should the oocysts be found in drinking water. Finding effective, economically efficient way of eradicating parasite from water supplies could significantly reduce the of disease burden both, in developed and developing countries.
This interdisciplinary project will be based at Cardiff University and will combine the novel method of water treatment using microwaves developed at the School of Engineering with state-of-art Cryptospordium culturing facility based at School of Biosciences. Cryptosporidium oocysts will be exposed to microwaves, and the impact of this treatment will be experimentally tested in the in vitro system, using a range of phenotypic assays (viability, infectivity, motility and commitment; using modern microscopy and molecular techniques), transcriptomics (to identify upregulation and downregulation of housekeeping genes and transcription factors potentially disrupting life cycle) and electron microscopy (to identify ultrastructural changes in the host cell infection process). The quantitative data will be then used to build dose-response curves of different dilutions of oocysts in water, exposed for different times to a range of microwave intensities.
The student will acquire a range of cell biology and parasitological skills combining innovative approaches to water treatment; developing expertise in the unique culturing facility in Europe which integrates biphasic host-cell based cultures (including continuous hollow fibre and human gut representative systems) with axenic in vitro approaches allowing various phenotypic assays; training in transcriptomics and imaging (confocal, fluorescent and electron microscopy), as well as mathematical approaches to data interpretation.
Links:
Application deadline:Midnight GMT, 4 December 2017
How to apply to Cardiff University:
General Enquiries:
2)Project Title:In silico modelling of parasite dynamics
NERC GW4+ DTP Research Theme:Living World and Changing Planet
Supervisors::Prof Owen Jones (School of Mathematics, Cardiff University) and Prof Jo Cable (School of Biosciences, Cardiff University)
Co-Supervisors: Prof Darren Croft, School of Psychology, University of Exeter; Dr Reza Ahmadian, School of Engineering, Cardiff University; Dr Chris Williams, Brampton, Fish Health Team, Environment Agency, UK.
Project Enquiries: ;
Host Institution: Cardiff University, School of Mathematics and Biosciences
Image Caption: (A) Freshwater louse that has devastated fish stocks. (B) A network contact and transmission model for an infected fish population (Science X). (C) Two-dimensional hydro-environmental model that will be used to model pathogen dispersal.
Background
The management of infectious disease is a major concern for conservation of wild fish stocks and is a primary constraint on the viability and sustainability of farmed fish. One pathogen alone, Infectious Salmon Anaemia, is estimated to have cost the Scottish farming industry £20 million in the 1998/1999 outbreak, and still costs the Norwegian and Canadian industries around US$11 and $14 million respectively per annum1.Emerging infectious diseases also pose a serious economic risk to freshwater fisheries, with a number of recently detected pathogens causing large scale disease outbreaks in England and fisheries having to close due these pathogens. By utilizing our new understanding of piscine social networks, we will develop new hydro-environmental models to simulate the fate and transport of parasites. This information is crucial for designing cost-effective control and management mechanisms.
Project Aims and Methods
Disease modelling typically occurs at the micro (individual host) or macro (dispersal in the environment) scale, but rarely is transmission of infectious agents modelled amongst hosts. This PhD studentship will bridge this divide by modelling disease transmission at all scales in four WPs:
WP1. Generalise our existing micro-scale model2 using a network population model. Nodes in the network represent individual fish (with their respective parasite loads) and the links between them are weighted to represent the degree of interaction between fish. Network structure,based on the latest piscine social networks3, will play a key role in spread of the parasite.
WP2. Calibrate the model against our existing empirical population level data, using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC).
WP3. Use the WP2 simulation model to build a metamodel of parasite reproduction number (R0), as a function of fish population-level statistics (e.g. density, age profile, water quality). R0 is the fundamental measure of parasite population viability, and once we have a model for how it responds we can compare the cost effectiveness of different control strategies.
WP4. Develop a hydro-environmental model to simulate the fate, transport and origin of parasites within a water body.
These models will be invaluable for understanding howparasite species/strains respond to changing environmental and anthropogenic stressors.
Candidate
This studentship will suit either (i) an applied mathematician keen to learn skills in environmental sciences or (ii) a biologist/environmental scientist with strong statistical and computational skills confident that (following suitable training) they will be able to apply cutting-edge statistical methodology (ABC) to the study of piscine parasitology.
Links:
NERC GW4+ DTP Website:
Application deadline:Midnight GMT, Sunday 7 January 2018
How to apply to Cardiff University:
General Enquiries: