Mosaic neuropharmacology with focused ultrasound

We are looking for a PhD student with a background in neuroscience, physics, or engineering, who is passionate about tackling fundamental neuroscience challenges and eager to develop expertise in in vivo electrophysiology combined with focused ultrasound for drug delivery. The student will be operating a novel focused ultrasound device to manipulate neural circuits in vivo.

The Research Programme

Your work would fit within a larger research programme involving 8 principal investigators, 4 post-doctoral researchers, and 3 PhD students from Imperial College London, King’s College London, University of Arizona, and the University of Michigan.

The programme aims to build a noninvasive technology for precisely delivering distinct drugs to targeted brain regions with exceptional spatial and temporal control. Our approach will engineer particles capable of carrying drug payloads that release only in response to specific remote signals. Furthermore, we will develop a device to direct these signals to specific brain regions, enabling precise targeting. We will validate this platform in rats and rabbits, demonstrating the controlled release of multiple drugs to different areas of the brain. Using these technical innovations, we will perform “mosaic neuropharmacology”—a novel method for manipulating neural circuits across the brain noninvasively in both space and time. This platform will represent the most advanced tool for brain-targeted material delivery, offering tremendous potential for neuroscientists and neurologists to explore and treat neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders more effectively.

The Motivation

Neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders account for 21% of the global disease burden, surpassing all other health condition. Growing evidence suggests that many of these disorders stem from abnormalities in neural circuits—complex networks of neurons that communicate across various regions of the brain. These circuits are composed of diverse cell types, each contributing to the brain’s overall function. When these circuits malfunction, the result can be significant cognitive, emotional, sensory, or motor impairments, underscoring the complexity of these disorders and the challenges in treating them.

Instead of viewing conditions like depression, epilepsy, or post-traumatic stress disorder as isolated brain malfunctions, we now recognize them as disruptions in specific neural circuits. These disruptions may occur between distinct brain regions or within more localized networks. Consequently, there is a critical need for precision neurotherapeutic technologies capable of targeting neural circuits at the cellular level across different brain regions. Such tools would open the door to innovative interventions that modulate or repair dysfunctional circuits, offering improved outcomes for patients affected by brain disorders.

Drugs remain one of the most powerful therapeutic tools, offering cell- and function-specific effects on neuronal populations, making them among the most targeted and adaptable forms of intervention. However, the challenge lies in delivering these drugs to specific brain regions with both spatial and temporal precision. Current invasive methods can achieve targeted delivery, but they can only deliver 1 set of cargo and come with significant side effects, limiting their use in treating brain diseases.

Current Technology

We’ve developed a FUS technology that can produce controlled transport of drugs across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). We showed that by using ultrashort ultrasound pulses (5 cycles) administered at a rapid rate, we can transport drugs across the BBB (Morse et al, Radiology 2019). We’ve shown that the transport occurs within 10 minutes of the ultrasound being turned off, after which, the BBB is closed. Furthermore, we observed no bleeding, no damage, and no histological difference between treated and untreated regions.

Next Steps

We will build on our progress by achieving greater temporal control of drug transport across the BBB and by introducing a new selection technology for triggering which drug is delivered. This would be the safest and most advanced noninvasive platform for delivering material in the brain, one that determines not only where material is delivered but when it is delivered; and one where you can also select which material is delivered to a specific place and time.

The Application Process

We will operate a rolling application process until we find the best student who accepts our offer.

• Stage 1: Applicants submit a 2-page curriculum vitae (CV) and google form. We will perform comprehensive CV reviews on 17 January. If we are unable to find a candidate in the first review, we will have a second review on 16 February. Application link: https://forms.gle/uAQVkgHhnv1dQWgs5
• Stage 2: Long-listed candidates may be requested further information. This may include references, research slides, and other information and/or a formal application to our department.
• Stage 3: Short-listed candidates will be invited for an interview.

This PhD Studentship is part of an Advanced Research + Invention Agency-funded project, subject to contract negotiations.

• Stipend: £21,327 per annum with fees covered
• Status: UK and international students
• Start date: between 1 July and 1 October 2025
• Duration: 4 years
• Supervisors: Andriy Kozlov (primary), James Choi, Sophie Morse
• Location: Department of Bioengineering, South Kensington Campus, Imperial College London
• Application deadline: 16 January (Round 1), 15 February (Round 2, if required)
• Application portal: https://forms.gle/uAQVkgHhnv1dQWgs5
• Keywords: Neurotechnology, focused ultrasound, acoustic cavitation, neural plasticity, neural circuits, neuroscience, drug delivery, neurological diseases, neuropsychiatric disorders, auditory cortex