Undergraduate summer studentships

2026 scheme now open.

The deadline for applications will be 5 February 2026 at 5pm.  Please send your application via email to fbsbusiness@leeds.ac.uk.  Applications should consist of a covering letter and your curriculum vitae.  Please note that a maximum of two projects can be applied for.  If you are applying for two projects, please ensure that you state your order of preference.

These projects are offered by Faculty postdocs and are internally funded.  Once you have applied, if your application is shortlisted, you will be invited to attend an interview.  Successful candidates will be supervised in the lab by the postdoc leading the project. 

The stipend offered to the undergraduate is £270 per week.

The 2026 projects are;

Dr Laura Caley ‘Mapping Food Outlets in English NHS Hospitals: a missed opportunity?’

For more details about the placement and information on how to apply, please read the job description.

The National Health Service (NHS) is one of the largest employers in the United Kingdom. Its primary focus is to deliver high quality medical care and help people live longer, healthier lives. The NHS environment should promote healthy living for both patients and staff. Despite the recent emphasis on healthy eating and reducing the rates of obesity in the UK population, health care workers can often struggle to eat healthily at work. Eating is influenced by many factors including local availability of food. An unhealthy diet can negatively impact on sickness and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain types of cancer. Over recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of commercial food outlets, including fast food chains, in many NHS hospitals, potentially exposing visitors and staff to less healthy foods. This contrast to the ethos of the NHS and the NHS Eatwell guide which promotes a healthy, balanced diet. In this project we will map food outlets in hospitals in England, to better understand how food environment might be contributing to the food choices for staff.

Dr Samuel Dobson – Dissecting host-protein interactions during chikungunya virus replication

For more details about the placement and how to apply, please read the job description.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a reemerging arbovirus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. Climate change is accelerating the geographic expansion of these vectors, leading to increasing local transmission in Southern Europe and intensifying outbreaks in tropical regions. Despite the growing public health burden, no antivirals are currently available, underscoring the urgent need to identify host factors that restrict viral replication and disease progression.

Building on our previous work identifying RNA-binding proteins as modulators of CHIKV infection (PMID: 39087525), we have performed a whole genome CRISPR knock out screen to identify proteins essential for completion of the viral lifecycle. This project aims to characterise the stage of replication that these novel proteins act upon, be that entry, translation or genome replication. We will employ subgenomic replicons alongside RNAi-mediated knockdown and small molecule inhibitors to dissect molecular interactions critical for replication. Live-cell imaging and immunofluorescence microscopy will be used to visualise dynamic host-virus interactions, while western blotting will validate protein expression and post-translational modifications.

This integrative approach will illuminate key host dependencies exploited by CHIKV, revealing new therapeutic targets and advancing our understanding of virus-host interplay. Ultimately, this work will contribute to the development of host-directed antiviral strategies to combat CHIKV and related arboviruses.

Dr Yevheniy Kutsenko Shchegolska – Novel molecular mediators of heightened cellular sensitivity to cold

For more details about the placement and how to apply, please read the job description.

Somatosensation is a critical process by which organisms detect and respond to environmental cues and stressors, ensuring survival and homeostasis. These stimuli can range from mild cold to extreme mechanical stress, triggering responses from thermogenic adaptation to protective behaviours. Despite its importance, there are major gaps in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying somatosensation and response regulation, with growing evidence suggesting the existence of yet undiscovered receptors and signalling pathways. Using an innovative screening method developed by the laboratory that involves random insertional mutagenesis, single-cell functional assays, and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), we will identify potential novel targets that mediate responses to environmental stimuli or chemical compounds. This approach will generate a diverse library of cells exhibiting altered responses to these stimuli, enabling downstream phenotypic, genotypic, and transcriptomic analyses to pinpoint the genes responsible. Discovering new molecules could transform our understanding of our interaction with the environment or pathological conditions related to somatosensorial pathways, paving the way for innovative therapeutic strategies.

Dr Xavier Monger – The effect of enrichment variety on aggressive behaviour

For more details about the placement and how to apply, please read the job description.

In order to provide an environment with enough mental stimulation for pigs, enrichment is usually provided in the form of toys or chewable materials in their pens. Engagement with enrichment can satisfy the need to express natural behaviours that could otherwise be redirected towards aggressive behaviours against pen mates. These aggressive behaviours can cause injuries to pigs, which can severely impact their welfare. Moreover, injuries can lead to loss of pigs and slower growth, which also cause economical loss for producers. Engagement towards novel enrichment tend to be higher, with interest decreasing over time. This raises the question as to whether changing enrichment items regularly, switching between multiple items instead of leaving the same items over an extend period of time could increase engagement with the enrichment items. Moreover, this would allow to provide a greater diversity of enrichment types, potentially allowing pigs to express a wider array of natural behaviours. In turn, this might reduce the expression of aggressive behaviour, if pigs are allowed to express their natural behaviours in their pen. 

Dr Yanjie (Davina) Song - Charactering the role of temperature in floret and spikelet development in bread wheat.

For more details about the placement and how to apply, please read the job description.

Bread wheat is a globally important cereal, with a large production all over the world. Temperature is one of the important factors that affects the growth and development of bread wheat, from seed germination, vernalisation, flowering to grain filling. It has been well studied how temperature regulates the transition from vegetative to reproductive stage, and also how it affects flowering time, but there is a gap between those two stages. Our project aims to characterise the role of temperature in regulating floret and spikelet development and identify molecular signals involved in this regulation in bread wheat. To achieve the objectives, we will undertake a two-step approach. Firstly, we will investigate the floret and spikelet development under different temperatures and conducting transcriptomic analysis to identify genes affected by temperature and developmental stages. Along with, we will investigate the change of the content of sugar and the distribution of auxin under the comparable conditions, to see if they are the signal involved. Secondly, we will create mutants for the target genes and investigate the development of floret and spikelet under different temperature, to further investigate if they are the signals we can use to stabilize the development under temperature changing conditions.