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The Wellcome Trust funded four-year PhD programme in science
EDESIA: The Roman goddess of food and feasting who emphasises the good things we get from our diets.
The EDESIA: Plants, Food and Health PhD programme is funded by The Wellcome Trust to advance major aspects of plant-based nutrition and health, from crop to clinic. The programme draws on the world-class, interdisciplinary research expertise of the Norwich Research Park (UEA, John Innes Centre, Quadram Institute Bioscience and Earlham Institute).
The EDESIA programme combines scientific excellence with a commitment to improving the working environment and transition support towards future employment for trainees. The single geographical location of our partnership provides doctoral researchers with access to an exceptionally wide range of expertise and facilities for research into plant-based food and health, including:
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Metabolic engineering of plants which enhance or optimize concentrations of specific nutrients
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State of the art approaches to breeding and genome editing of crops
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The function of the gut microbiome in the absorption of plant-based foods and their further metabolism by human tissues
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Use of the latest ‘omics’ technologies to measure changes in metabolism and gene expression
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Biochemical, genetic, cell biological and functional analysis of plant metabolites
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in vitro analysis of the biological activity of key metabolites in model tissues and cell cultures
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Investigation of mechanisms of action in animal models of disease
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Innovative approaches to bioinformatics, mathematical biology and metagenomics
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Complex statistical analyses of large prospective cohort datasets
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Human intervention studies
Plants, Food and Health
Nutrition and the reduction in risk of ill health is centre stage globally and food represents one of the greatest health and environmental challenges of the 21st century. The recent EAT-Lancet commission report stressed the urgent need to focus on high plant food diets, calculating that the adoption of such a diet would prevent 11 million deaths per year.
Through a four-year, rotation-based PhD, EDESIA students will have the opportunity to train in a wide range of disciplines across the translational pathway of nutrition research, ranging from plant science and the mechanistic understanding of nutrition, to clinical trials, population-based studies and public health.
This cross-disciplinary programme is open to candidates with an undergraduate degree in any scientific subject of relevance to the scope of the programme. We wish to build a diverse and inclusive student cohort and are looking for candidates who will make a strong contribution to the EDESIA community of researchers. We highly value curiosity, ability, independence, and the commitment to work across disciplines to deliver high-impact research.
We are no longer accepting applications to the EDESIA: Plants, Food and Health PhD Programme. Candidates may be interested in similar opportunities offered through alternative programmes, such as the Microbes, Microbiomes and Bioinformatics (MMB) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) programme funded by UKRI-MRC, or the Norwich Research Park (NRP) Biosciences DTP programme funded by the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
Programme Directors