PhD scheme

Information about our PhD scheme, how to apply, and details of our current students.

Supporting postgraduates is a key part of the Euan MacDonald Centre’s mission. We are passionate about encouraging, training and equipping the MND researchers of the future.

The Centre has an active community of postgraduate students and post-doctoral researchers who benefit from sharing knowledge with other MND researchers and people living with MND by attending Centre events and MND-related conferences.

Euan MacDonald Centre funded PhDs

Through the generosity of our donors and fundraisers, the Centre normally funds one or two non-clinical PhD studentship per year.

Applications for Centre-funded PhDs normally open in the Autumn of each year for programmes starting the following Autumn.

A range of projects is offered by Centre Principal Investigators, based at a University in Scotland. Project choices usually include basic (laboratory), clinical and social science.

The best student is chosen on the basis of application, interview and references, and then chooses the project he or she is most interested in.

What does the studentship include?

UKRI-equivalent stipend for 3.5 years
University tuition fees
a generous allowance for travel and consumables (£10K per year for three years)
oversight by a second supervisor and thesis committee
access to all training and support available to postgraduates at the chosen University

An enriched experience

Because Euan MacDonald Centre funded students become part of our wide-ranging multi-disciplinary network, we are able to offer additional experiences and training that include opportunities to:

shadow an MND Nurse Specialist, meet people with MND, and attend an MND clinic and/or home visit
attend and present at six-monthly seminar afternoons featuring a wide range of Centre research
obtain bursaries to present data at national and international MND-related meetings
gain experience in public engagement by participating in open days and MND Awareness events.
access the Centre’s communications pipeline to promote the student’s research

How to apply and deadlines

The application round for 2025 entry has now closed.

Applications for 2026 entry are likely to become available in Oct-Dec 2025. Please check back here for more information.

Example projects

The following projects were on offer for 2025 entry:

Supervisor(s)	Location	Project title
Dr Kosala Dissanayake & Prof Tom Wishart	Edinburgh	Identifying candidate biomarkers for diagnosis and progression of MND/ALS in animal models of progressive partial denervation of skeletal muscle
Prof Kiterie Faller & Dr Helena Chaytow	Edinburgh	Exploring serine and one-carbon metabolism in Spinal Muscular Atrophy – Towards next generation of therapies
Dr Lyndsay Murray	Edinburgh	Identifying Novel Regulators of Neuromuscular Junction Remodeling in in vitro and in vivo models
Dr Bhuvaneish Selvaraj, Prof Siddharthan Chandran, Prof Neil Carragher	Edinburgh	DRUG-Seq platform to identify therapeutic combination to reverse TDP43 mediated RNA dysregulation

Alumni destinations

This is what the previous Euan MacDonald Centre-funded students have gone on to do after completing their PhD.

Name	Studentship dates	Destination
Anna Sanchez-Avila	2019-2023	Postdoc in MND resarch, SITRan, Sheffield
Emily Beswick	2019-2023	Research assistant, EDoN (Early Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases)
Owen Kantelberg	2018-2023	Business Manager, LifeArc Technology Transfer team
Bethany Waddington	2018-2022	Lecturer, University of Glasgow
Brenda Murage	2017-2022	Analyst in the banking sector
Rachel Kline	2017-2021	Postdoc on biomarker discovery, University of Edinburgh
Claire Hetherington	2016-2023	Deputy Lab Manager, BioGrad, Liverpool
Natalie Courtney	2015-2018	Postdoc on presynaptic dysfunction in Huntington's disease, University of Edinburgh
Hannah Shorrock	2014-2017	Postdoc on SCA8 at Centre for NeuroGenetics, University of Florida
Chris Crockford	2014-2017	Management/research support in the third sector