We welcome enquiries
We're always glad to hear from people who want to work at the interface of computational design and wet-lab biology, whatever stage you're at and whichever half you're coming from.
Gatsby Sainsbury PhD Studentship
Designing Immunity from First Principles: AI Protein Design and Structural Biology to Build Synthetic Plant Immune Receptors
Now recruiting: a fully funded four-year Gatsby Sainsbury PhD on AI-designed synthetic plant immune receptors. Apply by 27 November 2026.
Supervisors: Dr Adam Bentham, with co-supervision from Prof. Marc Knight.
Funding: four years, with tuition and Durham college fees paid by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. The 2027/28 award provides a maintenance stipend of £26,212, plus laboratory expenses and a books, conferences and travel allowance.
Eligibility: open to students worldwide. Computational, physical and biological backgrounds are all welcome.
How to apply: email adam.r.bentham@durham.ac.uk by Friday 27 November 2026 with a CV, a covering letter of no more than one page, and a transcript of your results to date. Informal enquiries are welcome.
Deadline 27 Nov 2026Fully funded4 yearsBBSRC NEEDL PhD Studentship
Designer Proteins for Synthetic Immune Signalling for Enhanced Plant Disease Resistance
Now recruiting: a four-year PhD funded by UKRI BBSRC through the North East England Doctoral Landscape (NEEDL). The project will use generative protein design to build synthetic plant immune receptors, then test and refine them using cell-free synthetic biology and calcium signalling analysis. It builds on preliminary results from the lab in which computationally designed receptor domains have been incorporated into a plant immune receptor scaffold.
Supervisors: Dr Adam Bentham, with co-supervision from Dr Marc Knight (Durham University) and Dr Tom Howard (Newcastle University).
Funding: four years, funded by UKRI BBSRC. For home (UK) students, funding covers a tax-free stipend at the UKRI rate (indicative year-one amount for 2027/28: £21,803, to be confirmed), research costs and tuition fees. Studentships start on 1 October 2027.
Eligibility: open to home (UK) candidates; a small number of awards are available for outstanding international applicants (limited to 30% of appointments). Backgrounds in biochemistry, structural biology, computational biology, bioinformatics or plant sciences are all suitable.
How to apply: through the NEEDL programme by 5pm (GMT) on Tuesday 24 November 2026. Prospective applicants are encouraged to email adam.r.bentham@durham.ac.uk to discuss the project before applying.
Deadline 24 Nov 2026BBSRC funded4 yearsPostdoctoral researchers
We're happy to support strong applications to independent fellowship schemes. The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship 2026 call (deadline 9 September 2026) is one live route — if you're considering applying with the lab as host, get in touch well before the deadline so we can work on the proposal together.
PhD students
We take on PhD students working across computational binder design, host-pathogen interaction engineering, and structural validation — currently spanning plant immune receptors and targets in neglected tropical disease. Get in touch to discuss project ideas and funding routes — including Durham studentship schemes and UKRI-funded doctoral training programmes.
Interns & visiting researchers
We host a small number of interns and visiting researchers each year, typically for computational design or wet-lab rotation projects. Availability varies — enquire about current capacity.
Before you write in
What does a typical project look like?
Most projects start with a design question — a target, a scaffold, or a hypothesis about what a designed component needs to do — then move between computational design and experimental testing in a relevant host-pathogen system, or structural work. See Research for current directions.
Do I need a wet-lab or computational background?
Either is a reasonable starting point. What matters more is being willing to work across both, since the lab's core problem sits at that interface.
How do I get in touch?
Email is the most reliable route — see Contact. A short note on your background and what draws you to the lab's work is more useful to us than a generic CV email.