PhD Opportunities

New PhD opportunities at MMS.

Future Health Today
The Future Health Today Program is offering a PhD scholarship for an exceptional and talented candidate who is interested in undertaking a PhD project centred around cardiovascular disease & general practice within the Future Health Today (FHT) program. More information.

Osteoarthritis and Obesity
Outstanding candidates are encouraged to apply for the following funded PhD project at the Dept of Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, the University of Melbourne. The PhD scholarship is worth $31,200 p.a. and is available for three and half years.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic musculoskeletal condition that has many associated risk factors with one of them being obesity. Many studies have reported that obese patients with OA are more likely to experience worse clinical symptoms, including pain, compared to those who are lean. CCL17 has been recently identified as a novel downstream inflammatory mediator of granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF). It is important for the development of osteoarthritic pain and disease. While these studies highlight the importance of CCL17 in OA, the regulation of CCL17 expression and its functional role(s) in obesity-associated OA largely remain unknown. This PhD project will explore the regulation and function of CCL17 by utilising preclinical models of OA and obesity, immunological/biochemical assays and OA patient samples. More information.