PhD - Examining the clinical effectiveness of intra-apheresis cycling for peripheral blood stem cell donations.

Application deadline midday (GMT) 9 January 2026, late applications will not be considered.

Over 90,000 people receive stem cell transplants every year for illnesses such as blood cancer. Stem cells are an ‘immature’ type of cell that rebuild a person’s immune system after treatment. Before transplant, a patient or volunteer donates stem cells for ≈ 3 hours, but there are multiple complications associated with collection, transplant and engraftment. Our initial results indicate that light cycling periods over 3 hours increases the number of stem cells in collected blood.

This PhD will take a multi-disciplinary approach to test this idea in hospital and industry settings for the first time by allocating donors with myeloma, or healthy individuals to either ‘control’ (normal donation) or ‘cycling’ groups (plus donation). This PhD will examine whether cycling improves the speed of donation, and whether it is practical and safe. The number and function of collected cells will be examined using contemporary biological techniques and a national survey deployed to evaluate a donor and healthcare professional perceptions. The student will work between the University of Birmingham, Queen Elizabeth hospital and the Anthony Nolan collection centre in Nottingham.

We welcome applications from home, EU and international applicants. Due to stipulations from the funders, recruitment for international applicants to the DTP is capped at 30% of the whole cohort. Further information including the application form and information as to is on the MRC AIM website https://more.bham.ac.uk/mrc-aim/phd-opportunities/ .