I, would recommend you to finding out the topic by yourself. You can do literature search from past research information. As you want to do research it's better to do all steps independently. You can do it. Best wishes.

Ne R.Z It is worthy to explore COVID 19 (Pathogenicity, Virulence, Strain or H/N mutation) Acute Kidney Disease and Inflammation & Immune Cascade for the current situation (if feasible). For Singapore, it is also worth elaborating Zika (Pathogenicity, Virulence, Strain, or mutation) or Dengue virus (Pathogenicity, Virulence, Strain, or mutation), Acute Kidney Disease, and Inflammation & Immune Cascade. A further link to neutrophil, MHC or immune-complex molecules, etc with them. Actually, you can do a lot of things in these areas in light of primary or secondary research or molecular and gene study, etc. Please review the literature for possible novel insights.

SARS-CoV-2, its accompanying opportunistic respiratory bacterial infections and immune response.

This is expected to add knowledge to:

Virology of SARS-CoV-2

Associated bacterial infections

Immunology

Clinical management of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

I hope I wish have such an opportunity.

Good luck.

I, would recommend you to finding out the topic by yourself. You can do literature search from past research information. As you want to do research it's better to do all steps independently. You can do it. Best wishes.

Something that you may want to look into is bacteriophage as an alternative to antibiotics. They have been used in the countries that formed the USSR for years as an alternative. Covid-19 related topics are always going to be hot at the moment as suggested earlier. Again you need to find your own niche, but looking into different strains from around the world might be somewhere to start.

You did not state at what level, either undergraduate or postgraduate (MSc or PhD)....! If for graduate studies,it is better you have some insight to area

of interest and search literatures! Good luck

It doesn't sound like you are ready for a PhD yet.

A potential PhD candidate should be able to not only find a gap they intend to fill, but draft their own proposal.

Do your home work!

Microbial and immunological indicators of COVID 19- linked pulmonary and nephrotoxicity in the rat.

Please, note that there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for topic ideas from seniors and experience heads. It makes you come out a better researcher as the ideas receive helps you formulate a better topic for your proposal.

Second, topics are always subject to modifications by the Institutional Research Board (IRB). So, at the end of the day, your start up topic may not be the final topic.

Go ahead and contribute to knowledge and all the best!

Fadairo Ekaette(PhD)

Thank You all for your valuable suggestions!!

Please Note! Bashar Haruna Gulumbe Ahmed Faruk Umar Pallab Chakraborty

that I am about to start my course work and currently

exploring the research themes in Viriology and Immunology.

The reason to ask question on RG is to find out the current trends in international community in the above domain and to be aware of the broader areas that is of general interest to scientific community.Your suggestions will only help me to chalk out the broader area of my interest after which I will further narrow down

and explore the research potential within that area.

Of course I am not going to copy paste anyone's suggested topic and select it as my dissertation topic.

Susceptibility of COVID-19 or other virological infections in patients with bacteria-associated pulmonary and cardiac disorders and vice versa, and the role of memory cells.

You can support your study with some animal work on mice or rats via inducing infection and measuring various biomarkers of inflammatory and immunological responses.

With best wishes...

Dear student your enthusiasm is appreciated is an exciting and current area. I suggest a specific topic for your thesis, either undergraduate or a PhD, you could do a study on the impact of COVID 19 in underdeveloped countries. However, only you can find your way. I recommend that you continue studying and learning so that you can better orientate yourself and find the subject that you are most passionate about. I wish you luck and success.

Ne R.Z, go for relevance. Covid-19 is a new virus. There is so much more to know about it. Do literature search on MERS and SARS-CoV immunology related works that could have contributed to control their spread and to give you some insights on what techniques are available that you need to learn to do before you start your PhD project.

Normally you will need to work under a professor-researcher who will guide you through your research, someone who has the same interest as you, someone who can take you in to work in his lab and finance your project. That will be your first job... a very important first step.. to find the right professor research adviser for you.

You need to be trained first in laboratory techniques. Work as a volunteer and be serious about contributing to the advancement of the professor's on-going research projects... give yourself a year or two and be immersed in actual lab work. From there you will find your way and get to identify what virus and what aspect of immunology you really want to work on. Good luck.

Using a virus that has been genetically neutered is a reasonably new approach to creating a vaccine (See the work of Dr Greg Smith on Herpes from Northwestern) There has been some interesting work over the last couple years computationally predicting the edits of a specific guide RNA when using CRISPR. It's also computationally relatively easy to "pick" a target that in the virus DNA thats not present in humans. But making the determination that the edits to the target would indeed neuter it, as well as leaving it just viable enough to trigger the immune system - is clearly an area that needs more people in it. Thats DEFINITELY in the virology and immunology space.

Ne R.Z

I recommend the following as:

1. Study among SARS CoV, SARS Cov-2 and MERS viruses to generate advanced immune response to discover the new approaches in vaccines production. As you know SARS CoV-2 is a very complicated virus.

or

2. Study on the detection of viruses that could to build a pandemic, could be detected on or before time by exploring some epidemiological methods.

or

3. Work on drug or combination of drugs which could save the lives of individuals who are infected. Say..... immune compromised individuals.

or

4. Antibiotic resistance and new alternatives to combat the antibiotic resistance problem in order to tackle difficult infections including immune compromised individuals.

I hope anyone of these could help you to become a champion in the field.

All the best !!

SARS-CoV-2

As per the current scenario better choose virology to strengthen the work.

I agree with Nida: Besides the need of a supervisor, most probably you won't do a dissertation based on literature only. Thus you need a place (a lab) where you can do your practical experiments. Such labs are guided by professors and post-graduates working on their fields of interest.

What I would recommend: Check the homepages of academic departments for microbiology, virology and other related institutes for universities you might be willing to go to. Also look at smaller universities, not only the famous ones. The institutes typically write in which fields they have their specific research interest or link to publications. Sometimes they also offer open positions.

Have a look there which topics are appealing to you.

Don't forget: A dissertation topic is a starting point, but not necessarily what you will work on for the rest of your life.

Anti-biotic resistance in case of microbiology.

the linkage between animal and human regarding COCID-19 in case of virology.

Studying the role of bacteriophage against antimicrobial resistance could be considered.

Gut microbiome

Antibiotic resistance in farmed animals.

I once met Arnold Demain (nice guy) who is a pioneer in the development of antibiotics. I recall him telling me years ago how we don't put enough emphasis into developing new antibiotics. Dr. Arnold Lester Demain, professor emeritus of biology, passed away on Apr. 3 at the age of 92 from complications due to Covid-19. He was just shy of celebrating his 93rd birthday. I'd at least read up on him some while you ponder you thesis topic.

You can work on the effect of different combinations of antibiotics on specific bacteria infection

There are number of people including myself, who suggested to work on antibiotic resistance and to discover the new antibiotics.

My opinion is : We are unfortunately heading towards to post- antibiotic era by looking at the consequences received by utilizing and over-utilizing the antibiotics in the past 30-40 years. And microbes have also evolved themselves greatly to build resistance to any antibiotic.

I personally suggest that one should think of other molecules to combat the resistance rather than antibiotics !!

May be you can use topics from infectious diseases. They have a good scope for merging immunology and micobiology.

As some are pointing out, in these times, a person does not normally just pick their own thesis topic. By joining a group you are to be advised by an advisor that should have some funding for specific work. The funding comes from industry or another funding source. I myself had an adviser that had an umbrella of work being done; however, I was given the chance to discover where I wanted to go within that confined area.

As all responding have no clue or your adviser and or your potential funding, one area that might be of interest is bioinformatics. I had some very basic use of it in my work. If you are a good programmer or have the interest to have a large chuck of your work be from looking at genetic code and how it's manipulated then that could also be a way to go and less the burden of the cost of lab work. It could also give you the ability to collaborate with another lab potentially. Regardless, this day and age, most thesis topics are provided by the advisor in some fashion as some company or organization is funding work that in the end becomes your thesis topic.

John Reye

I liked you answer. Yes, one has to have a guide instructing a PhD student that what could be done on what subject and what is the feasibility about it.

However , there is no harm giving advise as you never know that the respective lab may have extra funding to carry out any novel research !! So, I support this that people are giving their advise to what can be done would be the best for mankind!!

Best

I'd suggest you look around your community in view of solving a problem relating to antimicrobial resistance which is a global concern. Also search for issues relating to immune response or reactions to infections and the role of antibiotics in complimenting immunity. Literature review will be an additional consideration. Thank you

Dear researcher,

I suggest work on the detection and treatment of bacterial born disease with new approaches and find the relationship between antimicrobial resistance and immune response to your new approach in detecting and therapy of disease s related to specific strains of bacteria.

dear researcher

no, must be one specialized in this fields.

I would like to suggest work on any bacterial vaccine-like salmonella or brucella vaccine that will cover both of your interests namely microbiology and immunology.

@ Ne R. Z

Hi....i think you can explore the role of bidirectional cross-talk between the gut-microbiome and the human brain that may regulate our immune system response in different immunological-related disorder such as IBD, Celiac disease....in which u can thrive for the role of microbes originated effector immune-active molecules...Other thing that you can do...to establish a relationship between the alteration in the gut-microbiome composition and cytokines or chemokines and do some functional studies to elucidate further the biology of disease.

As others pointed out, multi-drug resistance is quite an issue these days. I heard though that the more antibiotic-resistant bacteria become, the less they get resistant to bacteriophages. So maybe instead of other molecules you could look into this field and join the efforts to use viruses as "biologic" weapons instead of antibiotics.

Good luck!

Drug resistance in bacterial pathogens.

Machine learning application in metagenomics! I find this very promising.

molecular virology

I have asked the same question a few weeks ago. Any good problem in pancreatic cancer associated with Inflammation?