Medical and Healthcare Studies: Fully Funded KESS II Part-Time MSc by Research Scholarship: Development of a Multiplex PCR Assay to Detect Viable Probiotic Bacteria in Multi-Strain Preparation
*This scholarships is part funded by the Welsh Government’s European Social Fund (ESF) convergence programme for West Wales and the Valleys.*
MSc by Research in the field of: Medical and Healthcare Studies (Molecular Microbiology)
Start date: October 2019
*This is a part-time MSc by Research scholarship.
Cultech Limited are a South Wales based SME who specialize in the manufacture of nutritional supplements and are recognized for their ability to manufacture high quality and effective probiotics. Probiotics are defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “live micro-organisms which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health bene?t on the host” and efficacy is considered to be dependent on the viability and the species/strain of the organism. As such, national regulatory agencies including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require viable numbers and strain-level taxonomy of each organism within probiotic products to be declared on the finished goods packaging. The industry standard method for the enumeration of numbers of viable organisms is viable plate counting (VPC) and is adequate for simple, mono-strain products but much less effective for more complex multi-strain products where growth competition can occur between closely related species/strains. This represents a significant challenge to probiotic industry as the demand for multi-strain and multicomponent products is rapidly increasing on the basis of improved health benefits. This part-time Masters by Research will scrutinize Cultech’s recently sequenced probiotic genomes for unique sequences that, once identified, can be targeted by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in order to rapidly identify and enumerate component organisms. The candidate will then optimise multiplex PCR and further develop this to attempt to quantify only the viable bacteria in these preparations.
Scholarships are collaborative awards with external partners including SMEs and micro companies, as well as public and third sector organisations. The scholarship provides funding over 2 years part-time with a 3 month period to complete the thesis. The achievement of a postgraduate skills development award, PSDA, is compulsory for each KESS II scholar and is based on a 40 credit award.