PhD Medical Studies: ‘SHIELD: Systematic Assessment of Hepatic Micro - and Nanoplastic Accumulation and Clearance in Liver Disease’

Funding for: UK Students, Overseas Students

Funding amount: The studentship is supported for 3 years and includes full Home tuition fees plus a stipend of £19,830 per annum 2026-27 rate.

Project SHIELD:

Systematic assessment of Hepatic micro- and nanoplastIc accumulatIon and clEarance in Liver Disease 

DoS: Professor Shilpa Chokshi Shilpa.chokshi@plymouth.ac.uk

2nd Supervisor: Dr Nathaniel Clark nathaniel.clark@plymouth.ac.uk

3rd Supervisor: Dr Michael Wilde michael.wilde@plymouth.ac.uk

4th Supervisor: Dr Valentin Tastet valentin.tastet@plymouth.ac.uk 

Applications are invited for a three-year PhD studentship. The studentship will start on 1st January 2027.

Project Description 

Plastic pollution is one of the defining environmental health challenges of our time. Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) contaminate the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat and have been detected throughout the human gut-liver axis, including liver tissue and bile. However, how these particles accumulate, persist and are cleared from the liver and whether they directly contribute to disease pathways remains largely unknown. 

This fully funded competitively awarded PhD project will define the burden, characteristics and hepatobiliary fate of MNPs across the spectrum of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) while developing urgently needed biological reference materials to standardise MNP detection. 

Using the Centre of Environmental Hepatology's purpose-built PLastic EXposure-controlled Investigation (PLEXI) Laboratory, the successful candidate will: 

• Quantify and characterise MNPs in human liver, blood and bile from a large cohort of patients with MASLD.
• Investigate MNP toxicity, accumulation and clearance using patient-derived organoid models.
• Develop and validate the first tissue-based biological reference materials for MNP analysis.
• Correlate MNP burden and polymer composition with fibrosis stage and clinical severity. 

The project offers immediate access to patient samples (biobanked), human organoid models and state-of-the-art analytical and molecular technologies including Pyrolysis-GC/MS, Raman spectroscopy, confocal microscopy, electron microscopy, transcriptomics, proteomics and ICP-MS. 

This is an opportunity to join the first dedicated Centre of Environmental Hepatology (Centre of Environmental Hepatology - University of Plymouth) and contribute to establishing the mechanistic evidence base for Plastic-Induced Liver Injury (PILI) within a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary research environment. 

Eligibility

Applicants should hold a First or Upper Second Class (2:1) honours degree and preferably a Master's degree (or equivalent postgraduate qualification) in a relevant discipline, such as Biomedical Science, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Pharmacology, Toxicology, Environmental Science, Analytical Chemistry, Chemistry or a closely related subject. 

Preference will be given to applicants with research experience ideally gained during a Master's research project or as a Research Assistant/Technician. Experience in one or more of the following areas would be advantageous: mammalian cell culture, organoid culture, molecular biology, analytical chemistry, microscopy, spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, transcriptomics or bioinformatics. The successful candidate will be highly motivated, organised and enthusiastic about multidisciplinary research at the interface of environmental science and hepatology, with excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work both independently and collaboratively. 

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum English requirements for the programme, IELTS Academic score of 6.5 (with no less than 5.5 in each component test area) or equivalent. 

For Funding and How to Apply, please click the Apply button above. 

The closing date for applications on Friday 16th October 2026.