Our PhD/MPhil Microbiology programme enables you to undertake a research project that will improve understanding of Microbiology. Microorganisms play pivotal roles in everyday life, from elemental cycling and the production of food to life-threatening infections of man and animals. At Manchester, there are two main research topics - Molecular Bacteriology and Molecular Mycology. Molecular Bacteriology is focused on studying bacterial pathogens of man and includes the following areas: the role of bacterial polysaccharides and glycoconjugates in disease relationship between infection and gut flora structural biology of cell surface proteins in bacterial pathogens including their interaction with the immune system and implications for vaccine development adaptation of intracellular bacterial pathogens to life inside the cell development of novel approaches to combat antibiotic resistance mechanisms used by bacterial pathogens to handle transition metals and their role in host-pathogen interactions