Programme Overview CIDCATS (Combating Infectious Diseases: Computational Approaches in Translational Science) is a Wellcome Trust-supported PhD training programme designed to provide the skills and experience required for the quantitative interdisciplinary research necessary to combat infectious disease. The programme involves the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Electronics, Mathematics, Physics & HYMS, and a number of interdisciplinary research centres including Centre for Immunology and Infection (CII), York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis (YCCSA) and the York Structural Biology Laboratory (YSBL). The unique character of CIDCATS is the combination of: a strong interdisciplinary ethos; a diverse supervisory pool of excellent researcher across disciplines; mixed disciplinary student cohorts including bio/med and STEM students and a distinctive student-centric and cohort-adaptive research training model.

Student Background Aimed at exceptional students from a broad range of disciplines, including non-biological science, engineering or mathematics, with an interest in impacting on infectious disease through interdisciplinary research.

A 4 Year Interdisciplinary PhD Training Programme 
Year 1: Foundation Phase – an initial year of flexible training including tutorials, workshops plus research experience through a group and two individual rotation projects. At the end of Year 1, students develop PhD project proposals with a cross-disciplinary supervisory team. 
Years 2-4: PhD Phase – Dedicated research on your PhD project

Research Focus on Combating Infectious Diseases Infectious disease is a global threat to human health. Parasitic, bacterial and viral diseases represent 6 of the 10 leading causes of mortality worldwide. New thinking, approaches and tools are required for a better understanding of the complexity of disease processes at the molecular, cellular and organismal level. We need a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers to provide the skills and experience required for the integrative interdisciplinary research necessary to combat infectious disease.

Research Themes Research projects within the programme lie broadly under the thematic areas of: 1. Drug Target Development; 2. Predictive Modelling of Pathogenesis and Treatment Response; 3. Development of Novel Tools for Complex Data Analysis. Students develop their own PhD research proposals at the end of Year 1 in collaboration with academics drawn from the supervisory pool. The current list of interdisciplinary researchers associated with the programme and available as prospective members of PhD supervisory teams can be found at: http://www.york.ac.uk/biology/intranet/current-research/cidcats/supervisorpool/
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