Welcome to Medical Sciences Division's Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) website.

The DTC was established in 2008 to accommodate and integrate several DPhil (PhD) programmes funded by the Wellcome Trust. These included longstanding 4 year PhD programmes in Neuroscience, OXION: Ion Channels and Disease and Structural Biology and newly established programmes in Genomic Medicine and Statistics, Chromosome and Developmental Biology, and Infection, Immunity and Translational Medicine. The DTC also includes a 3 year Biomedical and Clinical Sciences PhD programme for clinical fellows.

While each of the programmes is distinctive they have in common world-class scientists and inter-disciplinarity. The integration of different programmes enhances this interdisciplinarity by facilitation networking and collaboration amongst students. The mix of basic science and clinical research projects is a particular strength of the DTC. 

In addition to subject-specific training a wide range of generic research skills training courses are organised including Advanced Light Microscopy, Bioinformatics, Statistics, X-ray Crystallography and the use of NMR for protein structure determination. In addition a wide range of courses in transferable skills are also provided including writing and presentation: the DTC provides extensive opportunities to present work to specialist and more general audiences. One highlight of the year is the annual DTC scientific symposium where students from all programmes present their research.  

Applications are invited from all nationalities. The Wellcome Trust provides full funding for UK and EU students and there are bursaries available to top up the awards for overseas students.  

Entry to each of the programmes on the DTC is highly competitive with the equivalent of a first class honours degree being the norm. The dedicated DTC staff smooth the way for the admissions process and the day-to-day management of the DTC. 

Professor Anton van der Merwe

Medical Sciences Doctoral Training Centre Director