Insigneo Newsletter - June 2022

Welcome to our monthly Insigneo newsletter!  

Our monthly e-newsletter keeps you up to date with events, funding, success stories and information. We hope you will find it useful! 

Insigneo Showcase 2022 - still time to register!

Join us to celebrate 10 years of Insigneo, hear more about our new research vision and network with members, clinicans and industry representatives

Date and time: Friday, 8 July 2022. Registration from 8:30, talks from 9:00, closes at 17:00
Venue: The Diamond Building, The University of Sheffield
Registration deadline: 24 June 2022

We invite you to celebrate the Insigneo Institute's 10th anniversary with us at the our Annual Showcase which will take place on 8 July 2022 at the University of Sheffield's Diamond Building.

This full day event is an opportunity for our members, funding agencies, regulatory agencies, industrial colleagues, and other academic groups in the UK to meet and see first-hand the innovative research produced by our Institute.

The day will feature:

• A keynote talk and talks from each of our five new research themes:  Biomaterials / Biomechanics / Cell engineering; Computational modelling in medicine; Biomedical imaging; Smart devices and sensors; and Healthcare data / AI;
• Early Career Researcher presentations – hear about emerging research with perspectives from the next generation of researchers;
• Poster exhibition
• Networking opportunities with industry, funders, academics and clinicians.

Our confirmed speakers include:

• Plenary speaker: Professor Andy Parker, Professor of High Energy Physics, University of Cambridge
• Professor Paul Dimitri, Professor of Child Health and Consultant in Paediatric Endocrinology, Director of Research & Innovation, Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
• Dr Susheel Varma, Head of AI & Data Science, Information Commissioner’s Office
• Professor Suzanne Mason, Professor of Emergency Medicine, ScHARR
• Dr Alex Rothman, Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellow, Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease
• Professor Sanja Dogramadzi, Professor of Medical Robotics, Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering
• David King, Head of Digital Design, Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre
• Professor Ipsita Roy,  Professor of Biomaterials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
• Dr Ivana Barbaric, Senior Lecturer in Stem Cell Biology, School of Biosciences
• Dr Annica Gad,  Lecturer in Cancer Biology, Department of Oncology and Metabolism
• Emeritus Professor Rod Hose, Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease
• Dr Stefaan Verbruggen, Lecturer in Biomechanics, Department of Mechanical Engineering
• Professor Amaka Offiah, Chair of Paediatric Musculoskeletal Imaging and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Radiologist 
• Dr Shannon Li, Senior Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering
• Ning Wang,  PhD Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering
• Malwina Matella, PhD Student, Department of Computer Science
• Dr Rebecca Gosling, NIHR Clinical Lecturer, Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease
• Dr Simon Danby, Research Fellow, Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease
• Dr Kyra Campbell, Sir Henry Dale Fellow, School of Biosciences

The day is planned as an in person event but we will continue to review government and university guidance relating to in person events.

The event is free of charge but places are limited. We invite you to register by 24 June 2022. 

University of Sheffield academics recognised as UK’s most talented early career researchers

Three academics from the University of Sheffield have been recognised as some of the most talented early career researchers and innovators in the UK by a prestigious fellowship - two of whom we are proud to say are Insigneo members who are actively enagaged in shaping our research themes. 

Insigneo member, Dr Alice Pyne from the University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Dr Tatyana Shelkovnikova from the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN), and Insigneo member Dr Neil Stewart from the Medical School have been awarded Future Leaders Fellowships by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

These fellowships help universities and businesses to develop their most talented early career researchers and innovators or to attract new people to their organisations, including from overseas. They provide flexible, long-term funding so academics can tackle ambitious and challenging research and innovation, whilst also developing their career. Furthermore, the scheme supports people on diverse career paths, including those returning from a career break or following time in other roles.

Professor Paul Hatton appointed Faculty Director of Research and Innovation

Congratulations to Professor Paul Hatton who has been appointed to succeed Professor Wendy Baird as Faculty Director of Research and Innovation for Medicine, Dentistry and Health. Paul will take up the post from 1 July as Professor Baird takes on her new role as the University's Deputy Vice-President for Innovation. 

On the cover of ABME June 2022 issue

Congratulations to Ivan Benemerito, Ana Paula Narata, Andrew Narracott and Alberto Marzo whose article 'Determining Clinically-Viable Biomarkers for Ischaemic Stroke Through a Mechanistic and Machine Learning Approach' has been selected for the cover art of the June edition of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (2022)

Analytical approaches for the segmentation of the zebrafish brain vasculature

Congratulations to Elisabeth Kugler, a previous Insigneo Member and PhD student with Tim Chico and Paul Armitage, who has had a paper accepted by Current Protocols "Analytical approaches for the segmentation of the zebrafish brain vasculature". She was supported by a University of Sheffield studentship and an Insigneo Institute bridging fund.

This is the seventh publication arising from her PhD (in addition to contributing to two other papers), which she completed within the three year funded period. The Insigneo fund helped her complete a number of papers including a first author paper in Development. It is also her second paper accompanied by a cover image (see above). That makes three cover images from the BHF lightsheet from Tim Chico's group.

Elisabeth  has been supported by the expertise of Karen Plant from the technical team as well as her supervisors and the Insigneo team.

Poster prize for Giulia Corniani

Congratulations to Insigneo Member Giulia Corniani on winning 3rd place in the Work-in-progress poster category at EuroHaptics2022 for her work on sub-surface skin imaging during dynamic contact.

Why science needs more research software engineers

Insigneo Member, Professor Paul Richmond, is featured in Nature speaking about life as a Research Software Engineer, the role of software in the research enterprise and the state of the field as it reaches its tenth anniversary.

Pioneering detailed lung MRI scans without radiation

The work of the Pulmonary, Lung and Respiratory Imaging Sheffield (POLARIS) research group, led by Jim Wild, Professor of Magnetic Resonance Physics and Director of the Insigneo Institute for in silico Medicine at the University of Sheffield, was featured as part of the University of Sheffield's celebration of impactful research with the release of the REF 2021 results.

Mellanby Centre Annual Research Day

The University’s Mellanby Centre for Musculoskeletal Research held its annual meeting in March and over 110 people attended. Speakers included Insigneo Member Dr Stefaan Verbruggen, Lecturer in Biomechanics at the University of Sheffield's Department of Mechanical Engineering, who gave a talk on 'Osteocytes and mechanobiology'.

Integrated Musculo-Skeletal Biomechanics (IMSB) Group - strategy mapping and team social

The IMSB group got together on 9 June for a day of lego themed strategy mapping and pizza in the park.

International Clinical Trials Day 2022: People Power

On Thursday 9 June 2022 an expert panel of clinicians and researchers from Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, Barnsley NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Sheffield were joined by members of the public for a discussion on the importance of involving patients and the public in clinical trials and research. The panel looked at the invaluable contribution that patients and members of the public make to the development of healthcare treatments and interventions, and the work that still needs to be done to make health research fully inclusive and representative. 

Key speakers:

• Professor Adewale Adebajo MBE, Consultation Rheumatologist and Clinical Director at Barnsley NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Professor in Musculoskeletal Health Service Research, University of Sheffield
• Dr Sabrina Eltringham, Speech and Language Therapist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Stroke Association Post Graduate Research Fellow, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Lise Sproson, NHS Innovations Manager at NIHR Devices for Dignity MTC and Patient and Public Involvement Lead at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The panel discussion was hosted by Professor Simon Heller, Director of Research and Development at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The event was run in support of the National Institute for Health Research’s Be Part of Research campaign and International Clinical Trials Day 2022.

New members

We would like to introduce some of our new members who have joined the Insigneo Institute recently:

In 2013, Ivana was awarded a Wellcome Trust discipline hopping fellowship, which enabled her to work with colleagues in the Department of Materials on engineering controlled microenvironments for stem cells. Ivana is now a Senior Lecturer in Stem Cell Biology at the School of Biosciences. Her current research is focused on the basic biology and mechanobiology of human pluripotent stem cells and their applications in disease modelling and regenerative medicine.

Full profile

In recognition to his effort, in 2013 he was awarded the prize for the best European Thesis in Biomechanics by the European Society of Biomechanics. He has participated in major research projects on different topics including modelling and quantification of cell migration, image processing and characterization of hydrogels and printed scaffolds. Currently, he is the M2BE leading post-doc within the PRIMAGE project, in close collaboration with several members of the Insigneo Institute. In recent years, he has combined his research with teaching in different knowledge areas (e.g. statistics, structure and solid mechanics, materials, quality engineering) and has also worked as an app developer. As a result, he presents a strong multidisciplinary background including: mechanics, statistics, image processing, data analysis and modelling.

Carlos will give the next Insigneo Seminar on 'Microfluidics and multiscale modeling in mechanobiology' on Friday 17 June at 3pm.

He moved to Sheffield in 2014 and completed his PhD in 2018 with the POLARIS group focused on developing techniques for diffusion-weighted MRI with inhaled hyperpolarised gases. His current research involves developing new image acquisition and analysis methods for structural lung imaging using hyperpolarised xenon and proton MRI.

Her research group takes a multidisciplinary approach, combining cell biology and imaging with biophysical techniques (such as atomic force microscopy), micro-fabrication and computational modelling. They are particularly interested in how modifications to the mechanical micro-environment within a tumour impacts the growth and division of cancer cells.

Lab website: https://www.helenmatthewslab.org/
Twitter: @helenkmatthews

Saleh holds a PhD degree in mechanical engineering from Shiraz University. His research in the PhD program was stability analysis of nanocomposites with considering different uncertainty sources. In 2019, he joined Queen’s University Belfast as a research fellow. His research was focused on the uncertainty quantification of fracture of composite structures subjected to different loading conditions. One of the major purposes of his first postdoc position was implementing a proper stochastic method in computationally expensive finite element problems.

His current project is funded by EPSRC and is under the supervision of Dr Pinaki Bhattacharya to predict effect sizes on bone mechanics in preclinical studies.

Profile on: David King

This was followed by seventeen years working in R&D for a global OEM developing award winning industrial products for infrared non-contact temperature measurement and thermal imaging. David's engineering qualifications include Electronics and Control Systems Engineering and Computer Science.

In addition to his engineering background, David obtained an MBA from the University of Sheffield and is a chartered manager. He has held senior leadership roles within industry with experience leading international teams and global development programmes.

In 2016 he joined the AMRC to form the Digital Design Team in the Design and Prototyping group and established the AMRC Digital Design Lab. The Digital Design team has grown significantly under David's leadership and delivers high TRL research outputs across various sectors, including Healthcare, Aerospace and Automotive. Whilst at the AMRC, David has led a team in developing a Digital Operating Theatre research platform. This platform demonstrates the translation of industry 4.0 technology to enable digital healthcare and provides a sandpit for research collaboration between industry and academia.

David's current research interests include Digital Healthcare, I4.0 sensor systems, machine learning, design, and digital technology to enable the circular economy.
David is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Sheffield. His research is focused on the application of machine learning to hyperspectral imaging.

David will be giving a talk to the Insigneo Institute later in the year (details to be confirmed).

How to promote your research

We'd like to highlight a new resource that has been made available to staff at the University of Sheffield on the marketing and communications hub to provide guidance and support on how to promote research (see link below).

Do you have news to share with us?

If you would like us to include information and/or events to this newsletter please email: news@insigneo.org (the newsletter will be issued during the 2nd week of the month, excluding January and August). 

Insigneo members - please let us know when your students are graduating so that we can celebrate their success!

Please ensure that you submit items for inclusion with a minimum of one week's notice.

Guest Lectures, Conferences & Seminars

Insigneo events

17 June
Insigneo Seminar: Microfluidics and multiscale modeling in mechanobiology

23 June
Insigneo research theme workshop: Biomaterials/Biomechanics/Cell engineering (14:30 - 16:00)

4 July
Insigneo Seminar: Professor Craig Levin, Title TBC

8 July
Insigneo Showcase

20 September
Insigneo research theme workshop: Smart devices (10:30 - 12:00)

18 October
Insigneo research theme workshop: Computational Medicine (10:30 - 12:00)

22 November
Insigneo research theme workshop: Biomedical Imaging (11:00 - 12:30)

20 December
Insigneo research theme workshop: Healthcare data/AI (11:00 - 12:30)

Other events

17 June
IICD Department Research in Progress Meeting – Infection Theme:
Mark Thomas & Ruth Payne - Please contact Sarah Black (sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk) for connection details.

19 June
N8 CIR Training event: Building Workflows in Digital Health

20 June
Sano Seminar: Marcin Wierzbinski 

20 June
Sheffield Tomography Centre - X-ray Microscopy at The University of Sheffield: Industry information event

21 June
BioSheffield Conference 22

23 June
International Women in Engineering Day, University of Sheffield - Open to the University of Sheffield's Faculty of Engineering staff and students.

21 - 24 June
International Conference on Computational Science

24 June
IICD Department Research in Progress Meeting – Cardiovascular Disease Theme:
Kiss-Toth group Serbanovic-Canic group. Please contact Sarah Black (sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk) for connection details.

26 - 29 June 
27th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics in Porto, Portugal

27 June
Sano Seminar: Ignacio Blanquer, Universitat Politècnica de València and the Director of the EOSC Association

4 July 
Sano Seminar: Liesbet Geris, University of Liege and KU Leuven, Belgium and Director of VPH Institute

4 - 6 July
ESMC2022

4 - 9 July 
2022 Lipari Neuro Summer School

6 - 8 July
BRS22

8 July
IICD Department Research in Progress Meeting – Immunity Theme: Nils Olijhoek & Kieran Bowden. Please contact Sarah Black (sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk) for connection details

10 - 14 July
9th World Congress of Biomechanics (WCB 2022)

11 -15 July
44th International Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference

15 July
IICD Department Research in Progress Meeting – Infection Theme: Helen Marriott & Rebecca  Brown. Please contact Sarah Black (sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk) for connection details.

26 July
Research Software Training: git & GitHub - from Zero to Hero!

30 August - 2 September
14th International Conference on Osteogenesis Imperfecta 

6 - 8 September
RSE Conference 2022, Newcastle

6 - 9 September
VPH2022 Conference:  Digital twins for personalised treatment development and clinical trials 

8 - 9 September 
BioMedEng22, UCL

13 - 14 September 2022
BIOREME Sandpit Event: Understanding Long COVID - register by 1 July 2022

18 - 22 September
MICCAI2022

21 - 23 October
Brainhack Krakow 2022 – the satellite event of the Neuronus Forum 2022

For a full list of upcoming events visit: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/insigneo/overview/events