Critical Care PhD / MPhil / MD

Overview

The University of Liverpool’s Institute of Infection, Veterinary, and Ecological Sciences was established to bring together leading medical, veterinary and basic science researchers from across the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences.  It also complements other strengths in Liverpool, including the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine, the Medicines for Children Research Network, and the Wellcome Trust Tropical Centre with its associated PhD programme.

Critical care research involves an understanding of the complex mechanisms that follow on from acute cell damage and injury. This may be caused by infection, trauma or ischaemia and infarction from thromboses. The dynamics involve an interplay between the inciting event and the host response, which is initially adaptive in order to protect the host. However, when this response becomes excessive and unregulated, it can lead to deleterious effects with potentially lethal consequences. These events link the processes of coagulation, inflammation and innate immunity to varying degrees and at varying time points.

In IVES, this work plays an emphasis on identifying the molecular events that mark the transitional phases during the course of critical illness, especially in identifying the signatures of early maladaptive events. This would then translate into the development of better diagnostic tools that help the clinician recognise appropriate time points for intervention. Coupled to this is the need to also drive therapeutic innovations for patients with critical illnesses. The focus is therefore also in developing novel biomarker-targeted therapeutics.

We particularly welcome research proposals that match those of our researchers, including:

• Immuno-thrombosis in critical illness
• Sepsis
• Trauma
• Multiple-organ failure
• Damage-associated molecular pattern molecules