Project Description

Can we stay ahead of an emerging crop disease before it becomes established in Europe? This PhD will use genomics to future-proof celery against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. apii race 4, a highly virulent pathogen that threatens celery production globally.

Working alongside industry collaborators at Tozer Seeds, you will use cutting-edge genomics to help future-proof celery breeding by identifying independent sources of resistance and translating them into practical breeding solutions.

We have evidence of independent sources of resistance to this pathogen in celery, which need to be characterised before they can be incorporated into more durable cultivars against a rapidly evolving pathogen.

You will analyse a large celery diversity panel, including advanced lines, landraces, naturalised and wild material. You will learn population genomics, evolutionary analysis, structural variation and pangenomic studies at the interface of crop genomics, plant pathology and breeding.

The project will be based at the Earlham Institute, a world-class BBSRC research centre of excellence in genomics, engineering, computational biology and AI. Working in collaboration with Tozer Seeds, you will join a highly collaborative and supportive research community and have access to training and career development opportunities across the Norwich Research Park through the Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership.

You will study how celery performs under high disease pressure in large field trials, exploring resistance-associated loci through genome-wide analyses, including SNP-, k-mer-, haplotype- and pangenome-based approaches. You will also use time-course RNA-seq to investigate how celery responds during infection, asking whether independent resistance sources trigger distinct or shared defence pathways. In the final phase, you will shape your own direction using comparative genomics, NLRome analysis, AI-assisted candidate-gene prioritisation with genomic and protein language models, and breeding genetics.

This project’s core value is translation: turning genomic diversity into practical disease-resistance strategies for sustainable vegetable production. It will build transferable skills in bioinformatics, statistics, reproducible analysis, stakeholder communication and industry-facing research. It will prepare you for careers in crop genomics, plant breeding, agri-tech, bioinformatics, R&D, or academic plant science.

The Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Programme (NRPDTP) is offering fully funded studentships for October 2027 entry. The programme offers postgraduates the opportunity to undertake a 4-year PhD research project whilst enhancing professional development and research skills through a comprehensive training programme. You will join a vibrant community of world-leading researchers. All NRPDTP CASE students undertake a three to 18-month placement with the non-academic partner during their study. The placement offers experience designed to enhance professional development. Full support and advice will be provided by our Professional Internship team.

This project has been shortlisted for funding by the NRPDTP. Shortlisted applicants will be interviewed on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th February 2027.

Visit our website for further information on eligibility and how to apply: https://biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk

Our partners value diverse and inclusive work environments that are positive and supportive. Students are selected for admission without regard to gender, marital or civil partnership status, disability, race, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation, age or social background.

To maximise accessibility and attract students from underrepresented groups to our programme we have introduced bespoke templates for applicant Personal and Research statements which will enable every applicant to fully represent themselves through providing suitable examples and evidence. These forms are on the NRPDTP website and must be used for these sections of the application form.

Entry Requirements

At least UK equivalence Bachelors (Honours) 2:1. English Language requirement (Faculty of Science equivalent: IELTS 6.5 overall, 6 in each category).

Funding

This project is awarded with a 4-year Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership PhD CASE studentship with INSERT. The studentship includes payment of tuition fees (directly to the University), a stipend to cover living expenses (2026/27 stipend rate: £21,805), and a Research Training Support Grant of £5,000pa for each year of the studentship.

References

Argelaguet, R., Velten, B., Arnol, D. et al. Multi‐Omics Factor Analysis—a framework for unsupervised integration of multi‐omics data sets. Mol Syst Biol 14, MSB178124 (2018). https://doi.org/10.15252/msb.20178124 Amrit Singh, Casey P Shannon, Benoît Gautier, Florian Rohart, Michaël Vacher, Scott J Tebbutt, Kim-Anh Lê Cao, DIABLO: an integrative approach for identifying key molecular drivers from multi-omics assays, Bioinformatics, Volume 35, Issue 17, September 2019, Pages 3055–3062, https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/bty1054 Van Den Bossche, Tim, Jean Armengaud, Dirk Benndorf, Jose Alfredo Blakeley-Ruiz, Madita Brauer, Kai Cheng, Marybeth Creskey, et al. 2025. “ The Microbiologist's Guide to Metaproteomics.” iMeta 4, e70031. https://doi.org/10.1002/imt2.70031 Gabriel E Hoffman, Panos Roussos, Dream: powerful differential expression analysis for repeated measures designs, Bioinformatics, Volume 37, Issue 2, January 2021, Pages 192–201, https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa687 MetaPilot enables adaptive genome-aware DDA and DIA metaproteomics using microbial genome catalogues
Kai Cheng, Daniel Figeys, bioRxiv 2026.06.12.728088; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.12.728088

Future-proofing celery with pangenomics, trials, and AI-assisted gene discovery (DE-VEGA_E27CASE)

Welcome to Norwich

Project Description

Entry Requirements

Funding

References