The Cardiac Positioning System – how do heart progenitors find their way? (MUNSTERBERG_U27DTP)
Key details
- Application Deadline
- 30 November 2026 23:59 UK Time
- Location
- UEA
- Funding Type
- Competition Funded (Home and International)
- Start Date
- 1 October 2027
- Mode of Study
- Full-time
- Programme Type
- PhD
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Welcome to Norwich
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Project Description
"The first organ to develop in vertebrate embryos is the heart, when two streams of cardiac progenitor cells undertake an epic migration before reuniting at the heart field – the site of future heart formation. How do cardiac progenitors achieve this feat? What clues guide them along the way and how do they “read” them?
In this exciting PhD project, you will use live cell imaging to track migration of cardiac progenitor cells as they navigate towards the embryonic heart field. You will learn molecular functional approaches to identify the cellular apparatus used by these remarkable cells to interpret a complex cell signalling landscape.
Experimentally, you will gain skills in molecular biology to clone candidate genes for mis-expression, or knock them down using CRISPR/Cas9 approaches in migrating cardiac progenitors and map their perturbed migration trajectories. This will reveal how specific gene products influence cell migration and fate decisions during heart formation.
You will join a collaborative supervisory team at UEA (Andrea Münsterberg, Tim Grocott, James Mccoll), gaining skills in developmental biology, molecular genetics, live imaging/microscopy, and computational biology. This multi-disciplinary project offers the opportunity to make fundamental discoveries about the molecular control of heart development.
Contact a.munsterberg@uea.ac.uk or t.grocott@uea.ac.uk for more information."
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 DTP studentship. 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
Song J, McColl J, Camp E, Kennerley N, Mok GF, McCormick D, Grocott T, Wheeler GN, Münsterberg AE. Smad1 transcription factor integrates BMP2 and Wnt3a signals in migrating cardiac progenitor cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 May 20;111(20):7337-42. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1321764111 Wittig JG, Münsterberg A. The Early Stages of Heart Development: Insights from Chicken Embryos. J Cardiovasc Dev Dis. 2016 Apr 5;3(2):12. doi: 10.3390/jcdd3020012 Münsterberg A, Hoppler S. WNT and BMP regulate roadblocks toward cardiomyocyte differentiation: lessons learned from embryos inform human stem cell differentiation. Stem Cell Investig. 2016 Aug 2;3:33. doi: 10.21037/sci.2016.07.03 Antoniou-Kourounioti M, Ramírez de Acuña F, Schettler RCC, et al. Open EGGbox: an open-source 3D-printed embryonic Gallus gallus toolbox for electroporation and culture/live imaging of avian embryos ex ovo. bioRxiv; 2025. DOI: 10.1101/2025.03.04.641180 Mok, G. F., Alrefaei, A. F., McColl, J., Grocott, T. & Münsterberg, A. Chicken as a Developmental Model. in eLS 1–8 (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2015). doi:10.1002/9780470015902.a0021543