European Research Council part-funded PhD Studentship: "Deep Learning-Based Synthetic Histology for Microstructural MRI Biomarkers of the Liver"

Who it is for

• Part ERC funded PhD project in the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences to start 1 February 2027.
• Entry point:.
• 1 February 2027.
• Overview:.
• We are looking for a highly motivated PhD student to join Dr Andrada Ianus at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences (first supervisor) and Dr Cheng Zhang at The Roger Williams Institute of Liver Studies (second supervisor).
• You will join a dynamic multi-disciplinary team with access to cutting-edge imaging facilities and world-renowned expertise..
• You will work on an ERC Starting Grant funded project which aims to enable the detection and characterisation of liver micrometastases development in cancer, based on integrating advanced MRI techniques with computational histology..
• Your project specifically is focused on developing and applying a histology-informed simulation framework for multi parametric MRI to create innovative biomarkers for liver micrometastases.
• By using synthetic histology meshes generated based on deep learning approaches, you will build MR signal dictionaries, which in turn can be used to estimate tissue cellular properties from in vivo MRI data, in a non-invasive way..
• Applying this approach to preclinical and clinical MRI data, and comparing the results with histological ground truths, you will provide histologically-meaningful descriptors that outperform traditional models, advancing precision oncology and early metastasis detection..
• Bachelor's degree with 2:1 honours in Applied Mathematics / Mathematics, Biochemistry, Biology, Biomedical Engineering or another engineering-related discipline, Biomedical Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Science, Medicine, Physics.
• A 2:2 degree may be considered only where applicants also offer a Master's degree with Merit or above..
• We welcome el

Good to know

This studentship is funded for 3 years. Funding includes a stipend and project consumables only.. Stipend : The selected student will receive a tax-free and generous stipend of £26,881 per year as a living allowance.. Research Training Support Grant (RTSG): A budget will be provided for research consumables and for attending UK and international conferences.. Tuition fees : The selected student is required to self-fund their tuition fees for 3 years. The King's tuition fees for 2026/27 are £8,000 (Home) and £34,700 (Overseas) and are expected to rise annually with inflation by up to 7%.. Please note that costs related to Student Visa applications and the International Healthcare Surcharge (IHS) are not covered and must be met by the applicant.. Exact official public KCL record revalidated 2026-09-11, unsupported precision omitted.