Wessex One Health BBSRC scholarship: How does norovirus spread within care homes and what are the transmission links between care and acute healthcare settings? (2026)

This project is offered as part of our doctoral programme funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC) which will train postgraduate researchers in interdisciplinary approaches to Infection Biosciences across all classes of pathogens, to combat existing and future disease threats to human and animal health, including emerging infections, vector-borne diseases, antimicrobial resistance and food insecurity.

What you get

PhD studentships cover four years of UK or International PhD fees and a tax free maintenance allowance (currently £20,780  in 2024-5) plus some research and travel costs.

Type of award

PhD scholarship

PhD project

How does norovirus spread within care homes and what are the transmission links between care and acute healthcare settings?

Theme(s): Microbial Evolution and Drug Resistance

Lead partner: University of Sussex 
Supervisor: Dr: Maria Krutikov:  m.krutikov@bsms.ac.uk 

Joint partner: UKHSA   Supervisor: Natalie Adams, natalie.adams@ukhsa.gov.uk

Project Summary

Norovirus is a highly contagious gastro-intestinal virus which is responsible for a large number of outbreaks in health and care settings. This leads to hospitalisations and operational challenges like bed closures, with significant financial and social ramifications. Surveillance is limited, given challenges with sampling and data collection which include an overstretched workforce and difficulties consenting older people with dementia. Given the extreme vulnerability of care-home residents to severe infection, accurate data on norovirus transmission between health and care settings is crucial to inform preventive measures. 

Wastewater sampling (WWS) is a population-level, anonymous, low-cost, inclusive tool to measure infectious pathogens, yet little is known about its practical applications for infection prevention and its correlation with clinical infection in care-homes. Understanding the reliability of WWS for norovirus surveillance could inform local and national policy. 

This project aims to apply inclusive approaches to norovirus detection to describe transmission between health and care settings to enhance surveillance and preparedness in care-homes. Specifically, an established WWS study from two care-homes in Sussex (WATCH study), within the Vivaldi-Social Care infection dataset will provide access to longitudinal clinical, environmental, and wastewater samples from these sites over three-months. Additionally, clinical specimens from symptomatic patients tested at the regional laboratory at University Hospitals Sussex will be integrated into the study. These unique samples will facilitate analyses to address questions around transmission.

The project will address these main objectives:

  • Measuring norovirus levels in environmental, stool and wastewater samples.
  • Comparing temporal variations in norovirus within care-home environmental and clinical samples with contemporaneously collected wastewater samples and clinical symptoms data, to explore representativeness of wastewater for clinical infection.
  • Comparing care-home and local clinical norovirus isolates to identify transmission between settings.
  • Describing associations of norovirus detections with infection outcomes through data linkage to routine health data from Vivaldi-Social Care.

Eligibility

Who we are looking for

You will have the ambition, motivation and scientific curiosity to research new approaches to combatting infectious diseases in the themes of:

  • Detection, prevention and intervention
  • Microbial evolution and drug resistance
  • Understanding disease spread
  • Infection and cellular biology. 

You will have or expect to have an MSc, and/or a first or upper second honours degree in a relevant subject. We welcome applications from graduates of all universities, and from candidates already in work, or returning after a career break.

Note: Lab experience is desirable but not essential as all successful applicants will be trained in basic lab skills where applicable.

The Scholarships are open to both UK and International applicants.  However international places are limited as 70% of each cohort must be Home Students.  In addition, some of the partner laboratories have nationality or residency requirements due to security clearance checks on their researchers.  Please contact the supervisors for details of any further requirements for this project.

Number of scholarships available

One for this project but 17 PhD studentships are available for October 2026  across the programme. 

Deadline

23 January 2026 23:59

How to apply

Please apply by submitting an application form for a Wessex One Health scholarship and completing our EDI survey

You will find this project listed in Section 14 of the application form.

If you are invited for interview, you should contact the supervisors ahead of the interview, but you are welcome to contact them before applying to find out more about the project.

Contact us

For Sussex-specific enquiries contact pgr-scholarships@sussex.ac.uk

For information on this project, contact the Sussex supervisor:   Dr: Maria Krutikov:  m.krutikov@bsms.ac.uk 

For further information on the programme or application process, email WOH@surrey.ac.uk.

You might also be interested in

You can find out more about the Wessex One Health Programme here,

Timetable

The timetable is as follows:

Submission deadline: Midnight Friday 23 January 2026

Shortlisting: by 13 February 2026

Online interviews: Online, week beginning 3 March 2026

 

Availability

At level(s):
PG (research)

Application deadline:
23 January 2026 23:59 (GMT)

Countries

The award is available to people from these specific countries: