PhD Degree Study in Anaesthesia at Imperial College London

Proposed by Dr. Daqing Ma, MD, PhD. Oct. 2011

I. General information of College, Faculty of Medicine and Anaesthetics

Imperial College London

Imperial College London (http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/) is a unique University in that it specialises in science, technology and medicine. Its research levels place it among the top three universities in the United Kingdom.

Imperial College has over 2,800 researchers, including 57 Fellows of the Royal Society and 57 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Over the course of Imperial College’s distinguished history, 14 researchers have won the Nobel Prize.  Imperial College London is in the sixth and fifth position in the world as ranked by the Times Higher Education Supplement last year in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Faculty of Medicine

The Faculty of Medicine is one of Europe’s largest medical institutions-in terms of its staff and student population and its research income. Over 700 Faculty members are active in research, with an annual research spend of over £140 million pounds.

There are five famous teaching hospitals located in north-west London (Hammersmith Hospital, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, Caring Cross Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital) associated with the Faculty. 

Section of Anaesthetics, Pain Medicine & Intensive Care

The Section of Anaesthetics, Pain Medicine and Intensive Care (APMIC) was created in 1998, with the intention at the Faculty level to revitalise the UK anaesthesia and critical care.   The Section brings together clinical and basic scientists with research interests in major topics in perioperative care, critical care and pain medicine, and has evolved into a successful and the most research active academic anaesthesia department in the UK and Europe under the leadership of Professor Masao Takata.

The Section is mainly located at Chelsea & Westminster (CW) Campus, but has shared laboratories at South Kensington campus (SK), Harefield campus (HF) and Charing Cross campus (CX).

Magill Professor in Anaesthetics & Head of Section (CW)       Prof Masao Takata

Professor of Pain Research (CW)                                Prof Andrew Rice

Senior Lecturer (CW)                                                     Dr Daqing Ma

Senior Lecturer (HF)                                          Dr Nandor Marczin

Senior Lecturer (CX)                                          Dr Anthony Gordon

Senior Lecturer (CW)                                          Dr Carsten Bantel

Senior Lecturer (CW)                                                     Dr Istvan Nagy

Senior Lecturer (SK)                                               Dr Stefan Trapp

Lecturer (SK)                                                          Dr Robert Dickinson

Lecturer (CW)                                                          Dr Michael Wilson

Professor of Biophysics & Anaesthetics (SK)                     Prof Nicholas Franks

 (jointly appointed with Faculty of Natural Science)

Clinical

The Section has close links with the CW NHS Trust, as well as the Imperial College Healthcare Trust/AHSC and the Royal Brompton and Harefield Trust.  The service needs of these NHS Trusts in anaesthesia, pain management and critical care are inextricably linked with developments in teaching and research within the Section.  

Teaching

The Section significantly contributes to both the undergraduate and postgraduate teaching of the Faculty of Medicine of Imperial College.  Most members are involved in courses spanning the years 2-5 of the undergraduate curriculum in physiology, anaesthetics and critical care.  The Section also plays a key part in delivering the highly successful BSc pathway of Surgery and Anaesthesia at year 4, of which Dr Wilson is a Director.  The Section is the host to a number of PhD students. Finally, the Section is home to the CW Healthcare Simulation Centre, a state of the art teaching aid that can simulate a wide variety of clinical situations, allowing the ultimate in experiential learning for medical students as well as junior doctors in the discipline.

Research

The Section undertakes a wide range of research from the inflammatory mechanism of acute lung injury to the neurobiology of chronic pain, as listed below.  Studies are driven by the desire to understand the physiological and molecular basis of these processes in perioperative and critical care, toward future clinical applications.  For each of the studies, the Section has implemented complementary research efforts at both in vitro and in vivo levels as well as clinical studies, supported by the Wellcome Trust, MRC, BBSRC, European Comissions, other charities and industries.  This has created an outstanding research and training interface between basic scientists and clinicians and will facilitate the transfer of knowledge gained at the molecular and cellular levels to the clinical setting.

Anaesthetics and neuroscience research

Molecular basis of anaesthesia

Neuroprotection/neurotoxicity by anaesthetics

Metabolic disease and brain function

Critical Care

Mechanisms of lung injury and sepsis-asscoiated organ injury

Metabolic/molecluar phenotyping and biomarkers

Influence of chronic co-morbidities in critical care

Organ protection

Pain Research

Mechanisms and treatment of neuropathic pain

Inflammatory pain and neuronal processing

Perioperative Care

Lung/organ injury in cardiothoracic surgery and transplantation

Perioperative inflammation

Perioperative cognitive dysfunction

For the next 5 years, the Section has set out two strategic research focuses, i.e. perioperative and critical care, and pain research.  Working closely with its hosting Department of Surgery and Cancer, the Section has now started an Imperial-wide initiative to establish a basic and clinical research consortium/centre for perioperative and critical care.  The Section also aims to develop basic and clinical pain research programmes further, based on its existing alliance with London Pain Consortium.  Both these themes are closely related to the Departmental new overarching research focus on “Personalised Healthcare”.

An important part of the Section strategy is to take advantage of the strengths in science and technology that exist in other part of the College, including the basic medical science as well as non-medical departments/faculties. In addition to the interactions with other sections within the Department, the Section has established major links with the Biophysics Section within the Faculty of Natural Sciences, the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, and the various sections within the NHLI.

II.  Sponsorship

The potential supervisor will help the candidate student to apply studentship from China Scholarship Council (CSC) (http://en.csc.edu.cn/) to cover the international student tuition fee. The living cost will be met by the student’s family.  The running cost of student’s PhD research project will be met by the supervisor’s grant.

III. Candidates

The PhD study entry requirements at Imperial College London are: 1) average scoring for all subjects during undergraduate study > 80 (Chinese exam scoring scheme-Max is 100); 2) overall IELTS > 6.5.

Master degree holders in Anaesthesia or Bachelor degree holders in Medicine, Biology or Biochemistry who has achieved academic excellence during his or her undergraduate study will be eligible to apply for this sponsorship.

IV. Starting point

Candidates who are interested should email his or her updated CV to Dr. Daqing Ma (d.ma@imperial.ac.uk) or Professor Takata (m.takata@imperial.ac.uk).  If they think that the candidate can be appropriately supported to apply for the scholarship, then they will help the student to accomplish the paper work that Imperial is required. They will also help the candidate to develop a research proposal for his or her CSC scholarship application.

They will also help the candidate(s) to identify any other alternative supervisors in case the candidate wishes to study in the area of Surgery, Oncology, Metabonomics or Reproductive Biology.