BSGCT Undergraduate Research Bursary
Nature of Award
The purpose of the award is to give experience of research to undergraduates with research potential and to encourage them to consider a career in scientific research. The award provides support for the student at a rate of £250 per week for a period of between 6 and 8 weeks. Applications are due by 4th April at 5pm GMT. These awards are an excellent opportunity for motivated undergraduates to explore a potential career in science, and build their CVs to become more competitive for postgraduate research applications or positions in industry.
Eligibility
- Projects must be focused on gene and cell therapy in areas including non-viral gene therapy, viral gene therapy, immunotherapy, monogenic and hereditary disease, stem cells biology and/or use in regenerative medicine, cancer and oncolytics, cardiovascular/ocular disease and vectorology or genetic vaccines.
- Both potential supervisors (researchers) and named undergraduate students must be members of the British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (BSGCT). They can readily become members at: https://www.bsgct.org/become-a-member. Membership is free of charge for students.
- Supervisors must be based at universities and research institutions within the UK, and named students must be registered at a UK institution for the majority of their undergraduate science degree.
- Supervisors who are early career researchers (postdoctoral researchers and new lecturers early in their careers) are particularly encouraged to apply, and will be considered preferentially.
- Preference will be given to supervisors who have not previously been awarded a BSGCT URB grant in previous rounds of the scheme.
- Only one application should be submitted by a supervisor.
- The student will take up the award during the summer vacation in their penultimate year (i.e. 2/3 or 3/4) of their degree.
- Mature students are eligible to apply, but must not have a previous degree in any subject.
- Bursaries will not be awarded for projects that are a part of degree work or for work which will take place overseas.
- Medical students, and medical students studying for intercalated science degrees, are not
Applications on behalf of first- or final-year undergraduates, or graduates, will not be considered.
How to Apply
- The application must be made by the person who will supervise the research, and not the student. However, supervisors should discuss the project in detail with the nominated student who should also contribute to the project design.
- Interested students can contact potential host supervisors for this scheme. Please note that if candidate supervisors are not current members of BSGCT, they can become readily become members at: https://www.bsgct.org/become-a-member
- Please read our guidelines before making an enquiry or completing an application form.
- Completed applications with all the relevant signatures should be sent by email to board@bsgct.org with URB 2025 in the subject heading.
Previous Winners
The BSGCT would like to congratulate the successful applicants for our Undergraduate Research Placement Scheme.
Vickie Man Ki Wang, Imperial College London, who undertook a summer project entitled “Investigating the role of miRNA targets on maturity of stem cell derived induced hepatocytes” under the supervision of Dr S. Tamir Rashid at Imperial College London.
Grace Rachel Humphreys, University College London, who undertook a summer project entitled “Determining the optimal formulation of LNPs for hepatocyte transfection” under the supervision of Dr Foad Rouhani at The Francis Crick Institute.
Monica Mok undertook a project entitled “Developing novel gene therapies for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy to mitigate transgene-triggered immune responses” under the supervision of John Counsell at University College London
Aimee Lucignoli undertook a project entitled “Targeting the long non-coding RNA SMILR using small interfering RNA for therapeutic intervention in vein graft failure” under the supervision of Andy Baker at the University of Edinburgh.
Ke Zheng undertook a project entitled “Lentiviral gene therapy for ARC syndrome: investigation of a hepatocyte and haematopoietic cell specific promoter” under the supervision of Paul Gissen at University College London.
Arthur Littler undertook a project entitled “Can Virus-based cancer therapies producing Bispecific immune cell activators be used for treatment of Pancreatic cancers” under the supervision of Rebecca Bayliss at Cardiff University.
Rijul Desai who undertook a summer project under the supervision of Dr Rajvinder Karda at University College London.
Hester Chu, UCL School of Pharmacy, who undertook a summer project entitled “Developing AAV for gene therapy for ACTA2 vascular disorder” under the supervision of Dr Joanne Ng at the UCL EGA Institute for Women’s Health.
Holly Ellard, University of Bath, who undertook a summer project entitled “Developing AAV-mediated gene transfer into human saphenous vein bypass grafts” under the supervision of Prof Andrew Baker at the University of Edinburgh.
Wojciech Lason, University College London (UCL) who will undertake a summer project entitled “Quantifying the immune checkpoint signalling landscape in cancer for improved predictions of response to immunotherapy” under the supervision of Dr.Maria Secrier at University College London (UCL).
Andrei Claudiu Cozmescu, University College London (UCL) who will undertake a summer project entitled “Setting up a potency assay for the development of a gene therapy product for argininosuccinic aciduria” under the supervision of Dr. Dany Perocheau at University College London (UCL).
Rivani Shah, University College London (UCL) who will undertake a summer project entitled “An evaluation of lentiviral mediated gene delivery to Schwann cells for the purpose of tissue engineering” under the supervision of Dr Ahad Rahim at University College London (UCL).
Marina Safeer, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) who will undertake a summer project entitled ” DNA self-assembled scaffold with dual functionality; cell and gene delivery platform” under the supervision of Dr Alvaro Mata at the Institute for Bioengineering, QMUL.
Jiayi Zhang, University College London who will undertake a summer project entitled “Synthetic viruses capsid design: new tools to improve nuclear transport of plasmid DNA” under the supervision of Professor Giuseppe Battaglia,University College London.
William Bennet, University of Portsmouth who will undertake a summer project entitled “Development of CRISPR/Cas technology for efficient site-specific integration of genes into the human genome” under the supervision of Professor Len Seymour at University of Oxford.
David Preston, University of Leeds who will undertake a summer project entitled “Investigating the potential role of circadian rhythm in adenovirus-mediated gene therapy” under the supervision of Professor Eric Blair at University of Leeds.
The BSGCT and Nuffield Foundation would like to congratulate the successful applicants!
Natalie Cox, Cardiff University to be supervised by Dr Alan Parker at Cardiff University on a project entitled “Identification of cancer stem cell binding oligopeptides and incorporation into the Ad5 fiber region”
Yusef Eamon Badi, Queen Mary University to be supervised by Dr Petra Disterer at UCL on a project entitled “Treatment of Acromegaly using Growth Hormone Receptor Truncation by Alternative Splicing”
Benedikt Thomas Best, Imperial College to be supervised by Dr Claire Booth at UCL on a project entitled “Lineage restricted SAP transgene expression – development of a vector suitable for clinical trial in X-linked lymphoproliferative disease”
Thomas Watkins, Cardiff University to be supervised by Dr John Bridgeman at Cardiff University on a project entitled “Generation of CD8 variants for optimising adoptive T-cell therapy”.
The BSGCT and Nuffield Foundation would like to congratulate the successful applicants for our inaugural Undergraduate Research Placement Scheme!
Micheal McDonald, University of Glasgow who will undertake a summer project entitled “Role for the adenovirus hexon in gene transfer” under the supervision of Professor Andrew Baker at University of Glasgow.
Ellyn Hughes, Cardiff University who will undertake a summer project entitled “A critical comparison of T-cell receptor modifications for improving gene-modified autologous T-cell transfer” under the supervison of early career researcher Dr. John Bridgeman at Cardiff University.
Gary Duncan, University of Glasgow who will undertake a summer project entitled “In vivo and in vitro validation of haemogenic endothelial cell microRNA expression profile” with early career researcher Dr. Nicole Kane at the Institute of Child Health, UCL.
Katherine-Linsey Collins-Taylor, University of Glasgow who will undertake a summer project entitled “Assessment of genotoxic risk by computational analysis of lentiviral integration sites” with Dr Chris Boyd at the University of Edinburgh.