Simon Bamforth, in collaboration with Helen Phillips, is now recruiting a suitable candidate to undertake a 3-year PhD Studentship, funded by the British Heart Foundation, to study the role of the extracellular matrix in aortic arch artery development. This research project hopes to understand the complex processes that are required for correct formation of these large and important blood vessels, and what may go wrong during development, resulting in congenital heart defects. The successful candidate will use a range of laboratory techniques including microscopy and cell sorting to identify the genetics underlying development of the aortic arch.

For more information, contact: simon.bamforth@newcastle.ac.uk

Abnormalities of the heart are the most common birth defect and can affect the aortic arch arteries (the large blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart and deliver it to the whole body). Simon Bamforth and Helen Phillips in collaboration with Prof Nicoletta Bobola at the University of Manchester, have been awarded a 3-year project grant from the British Heart Foundation to study the genetic control of arch artery development. Combining the study of anatomy with state-of-the-art single cell transcriptomics they hope to unravel the complex networks of genes that are required to be expressed at the right time and in the correct place to ensure that our heart and blood vessels will develop properly and effectively deliver oxygenated blood around the body.

For more information, contact: simon.bamforth@newcastle.ac.uk