Hi all,

I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking about my PhD topic, I'm currently a year (ish) in to a part time PhD while working full time. My current plan is to head into the lab at uni to do complete the lab work portion of my project, but more and more I'm thinking it might just not be feasible. My work supervisor is becoming less supportive and changing her mind on how often, or even if, i will be allowed to take time off to go to university, even though at the application stage she was very supportive. There is nothing in particular in the higher education policy at work saying whether she needs to let me go/not let me go.

My project is looking at a drug type X in disease Y, so picking a target, generating a few lead molecules, validating them in the lab etc, and I work in non-clinical drug development so it all fits. My question is this: although my project has been agreed upon during the application, how much can it change? I.e. can I remove the lab based part and just analyse previous generated data and do more computational predictions? My plan would be to review theories on the cause of disease Y, review current drugs on the market for the disease (only 4), review clinical trial failures and successes, review the new drug type I would be looking at and it's current successes (1 drug licensed by FDA) and failures, then predict what targets the new drug type may work against, biomarkers that could be used in non-clinical assessment etc etc

I know the final answer lies with my supervisor, but would that be enough original content to gain a PhD? I don't feel like it would, but right now if my work supervisor doesn't change, I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to complete my project.

Hi all,

I have just recently started my PhD part time and I was hopeful there would be other people who are working full time while studying, and also possibly parenting! I work full time in the drug development field, my PhD is on DNA aptamers as therapeutics, my child is 7 and we have a puppy, you know, might as well go the whole hog!! Obviously finding it all a bit overwhelming, but once I have more of a plan, I think it will be fine, fingers crossed!

Anyone else working in a similar field / have a whole heap of commitments?

A bit of background ... I have a degree in Food, Nutrition and Health Science and a Masters in Clinical Nutrition. I currently work in molecular biology after 2 years in the biophysical lab in the same company. My new boss has offered to pay for training or further education for me. At the moment I work with a novel technology as a replacement for antibodies, and the research I am doing, I think, would be a good topic for a PhD as its all new information I am gathering. Is there a way for me to use my work at work as a PhD? Would a uni let me do my work here and still give me a qualification for it?