PhD Studentships
Training the next generation of structural scientists.
We know training the next generation is vital to advance science, for this reason we sponsor a number of PhD students every year as part of our charitable mission to advance science for the public benefit.
As a partner institute of the University of Cambridge we are able to supervise PhD students together with partner universities, and collaborating institutions including companies.
Current Sponsored Students
As part of our ongoing commitment to collaboration across academia and industry The CCDC sponsors a number of PhD students each year.
Topics range across the chemical and biochemical fields, and each PhD is co-supervised by a CCDC team member, a university and in many cases an industrial partner.
Join us at our annual Science Day to learn what PhD students currently sponsored by The CCDC are working on, as they present their progress.
For supervisors worldwide, if you have a request for a co-sponsored studentship that is in-line with CCDC research aims then we would be interested to hear your project proposal. We accept proposals all year round but typically review submissions during the first few months of a calendar year. Complete the form below or speak to us at one of the events we attend worldwide to find out more.
Message us about a co-sponsored studentship:
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Emilia Prandini
Thesis title; Relating structure with surface properties of organic crystalline materials.
Collaboration with the Politecnico di Torino, Italy (Elena Simone).
Harry Nash
Thesis title; Evaluating the landscape of σ-hole intermolecular interactions.
Collaboration with Sheffield University (Lee Brammer, Grant Hill).
Lawson Glasby
Thesis title; New knowledge and Tools for Topological Characterisation of the CSD Subset of Metal–organic Frameworks.
Collaboration with The University of Sheffield (Peyman Moghadam).
Benoit Baillif
Thesis title; Improving Ligand-Protein Affinity Prediction and Scoring Functions Using Proteochemometric Modelling and Deep Neural Networks.
Collaboration with The University of Cambridge (Andreas Bender).
Sam Meredith
Thesis title; Connecting Drug Discovery with Solid-State Formulation Design.
Collaboration with The University of Leeds (Colin Fishwick, Robert Hammond, Martin McPhillie), Pfizer (Klimentina Pencheva), and Syngenta (Neil George).
Nathan Henessy
Thesis title; Towards Product Control by Design: Studies of the Nucleation and Crystal Growth of L-Histidine.
Collaboration with The University of Leeds (Sven Schroeder, Beth Willneff).
Omar El-Habbak
Thesis title; Correlating digital and experimental chemical space to pharmaceutical manufacturing processes
Collaboration with The University of Strathclyde CMAC (Alastair Florence) and AstraZeneca (Rachel Shinebaum, Helen Blade)
Julia Gasol
Thesis title; From crystal to tablet – linking structure to function.
Collaboration with The University of Strathclyde (Iain Oswald and Daniel Markl).
Dori Gasparikova
Thesis title; From Fragment-screening to Fragment-growing – new strategies for drug discovery (Ref MoSMed20-10).
Collaboration with The University of Durham (Ehmke Pohl).
Jonathan McManus
Thesis title; Towards prediction of synthetically accessible organic molecular crystals.
Collaboration with The University of Liverpool (Vitaliy Kurlin and Andrew I. Cooper).
Daniel E. Widdowson
Thesis title; A rigorous identification of all metastable polymorphs for better and safer drugs.
Collaboration with The University of Liverpool (Vitaliy Kurlin and Andrew I. Cooper).
Jonathan Balasingham
Thesis title; AI-based exploration of crystal spaces to accelerate drug discovery.
Collaboration with The University of Liverpool (Viktor Zamaraev, Vitaliy Kurlin, and Andrew I. Cooper).
Aaron Horner
Thesis title; Developing the place and function of Crystal Sponge structures in the structural science landscape.
Collaboration with The University of Southampton (Simon Coles).
James Broster
Thesis title; (TBC) Enriching docking with machine-learning approaches
Collaboration with The University of Oxford (Charlotte Deane).
Henry Holleb
Thesis title; Pharmaceutical Salts: From Structure to Hydration Propensity
Collaboration with Durham University (Aurora Cruz-Cabeza).
Alexander Lee
Thesis title; Identifying and using a subset of structures that can potentially undergo enantiomeric ripening via conglomerate formation
Collaboration with Durham University (Matt Kitching)
William Midgley
Thesis title; PROTACS: new computational methods, targets, and empirical validation
Collaboration with Durham University (Ehmke Pohl)
About the Programme
Over 50 PhD students sponsored since 2000.
Here Jason Cole, Senior Research Fellow, explains more about the history and structure of CCDC’s PhD programme.