PhD Studentship at Newcastle
A fully funded 3-year PhD studentship is available within Mathematics &
Statistics at Newcastle University. The studentship is part of a
multidisciplinary project "Evaluation of biomarkers for ageing in
populations of the youngest old and the oldest old", jointly funded by
MRC and Unilever.
The student will focus on statistical aspects of this work, notably the
development and application of novel methodology for the assessment of
prognostic accuracy of biomarker information, using longitudinal data
subject to informative dropout. A project abstract is below.
Funding will cover maintenance and fees (at EU rate) and the studentship
is available from October 2007 (with flexibility over start date).
If you would like to discuss the studentship please contact
[log in to unmask] (tel 0191 222 7235).
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Ageing is the single largest risk factor for death and major diseases.
However, biological age can differ significantly from calendaric age. A
number of biomarkers of age have been developed in recent years,
prominently including telomere length in white blood cells. None of
these has been sufficiently evaluated in human populations, interlinked
with each other or examined longitudinally. Thus we propose the
construction of an interrelated panel of biomarkers of ageing on the
basis of well-established molecular, cellular and physiological ageing
mechanisms and its prospective and longitudinal evaluation in two
population-based samples (the MRC National Survey of Health and
Development cohort of the youngest old (53-60 years), and the NorthEast
85+ study of the oldest old (85-90 years). This will be completed by an
analysis of patient groups at early stages of age-related disease. The
availability of these cohorts means that we are uniquely placed to
obtain prospective and longitudinal results within the 3 years lifetime
of this proposal.
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