Insigneo Newsletter - April 2026

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! 

Step up for little lungs: Join the Big Walk 2026 to support ground breaking children's lung research

Every breath counts for children battling lung disease - and this summer, every step will too. The University of Sheffield is calling on the South Yorkshire community to lace up their walking boots and take part in the Big Walk 2026 to help raise vital funds to transform the lives of children living with lung disease.

The annual Big Walk will return on Friday 3 July 2026, with participants tackling either a 20 or 30-mile route through the Peak District to raise funds for new imaging technology that is revolutionising paediatric respiratory care, making scans safer and more accurate for children with lung conditions.  

This year’s challenge aims to support the groundbreaking work by Sheffield scientists to improve how lung conditions in children are diagnosed and treated, an area described by researchers as an “invisible crisis”.

UK University collaboration to cure childhood gut disease with stem cell therapy

Insigneo member, Dr Anestis Tsakiridis from the School of Biosciences, is leading a project to develop a revolutionary new stem cell therapy to treat a rare and life-threatening disease that leaves newborn babies unable to function without invasive surgery, thanks to a collaboration between the University of Sheffield, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, and Queen’s University Belfast.

The research, which brings together world-leading experts in stem cell biology, gastrointestinal tract physiology, statistics and health economics, aims to provide a permanent cure for children born without a functional "second brain" in their digestive tract.

Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3) profile on Professor Ipsita Roy: Following the heart

Zanna Buckland from the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3) spoke to Insigneo member Professor Ipsita Roy about her passion for creating medical devices from bacteria-derived polymers and her career journey, achievements and spin-out company Phast.

Combining Practice and Research: Dr Rebecca Mawson’s Mission to Transform Women’s Health

Insigneo member Dr Rebecca Mawson is a GP and researcher bridging frontline care and academia to tackle inequalities and transform women’s health.

Born and raised in Sheffield, Dr Rebecca Mawson is combining frontline general practice with research at the University of Sheffield to address some of the most pressing challenges in women’s health. 

As a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Academic Clinical Lecturer in Primary Care, a role that uniquely bridges clinical work and academia. Splitting her time between patients and research, she works two days a week as a GP, and two days within the University’s Primary Care group in the School of Medicine and Population Health. 

University of Sheffield students tackle overlooked women’s health crisis

Urgent and overlooked challenges in women’s healthcare are being tackled by the next generation of innovators at the University of Sheffield, through a new initiative accelerating solutions to some of the most under-addressed areas of global health.

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration bringing together students, clinicians and industry leaders, new ideas have been developed to address health challenges that leave millions of women facing years-long delays in diagnosis and care.

The Women’s Health Innovation Challenge saw students from across disciplines and year groups work in teams to create solutions to some of these issues, including the fragmented care across the female health lifecycle and the widespread normalisation of serious symptoms.

The Insigneo Institute was pleased to support this event by sponsoring prizes for the winning team, and Insigneo members Dr Michael Trikic and Professor Gwendolen Reilly took part in the event as part of the judges' panel and as a mentor, respectively.

Pint of Science Festival 2026

Curious minds are invited to unravel life’s great mysteries - ranging from what happens if you fall into a black hole to why chocolate feels so luxurious in your mouth - as the world’s largest public science festival returns to Sheffield.

Pint of Science will see University of Sheffield scientists, researchers and PhD students venture out of their labs to share their discoveries in pubs and venues across the city, showcasing their work in settings where everyone has the opportunity to be a part of the conversation.

This year’s festival has over 40 talks, demonstrations and live experiments in five popular venues across the city from 18 - 20 May: Sheffield Plate, The Lescar, Neepsend Social Club, 99 Mary Street and the Sheffield Tap.

We recommend checking out these talks from our Insigneo members: 

• Tiny supermodels - watch single molecules strut their stuff - Sarah Harris
• Silicon Skeletons: Digital Models for Predicting Hip Fracture - Jacob Wilkinson
• Towards painless and rapid oral cancer diagnosis - Malwina Matella, Rachel Furmidge, Mary Paterson
• Slip of the Tongue: The Friction of Eating Food - Prof Matt Carre & Dr Sam Davison
• Rewired: Can brain stimulation hack our behaviour? - Alekhya Mandali
• Cancer Immunotherapy: A Molecular Call to Arms - Scott Parker

All tickets are £5 and can be booked here.

Joint Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (TCES) and Insigneo Institute online webinar

Please register for the upcoming Joint Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (TCES) and Insigneo Institute webinar on Thursday, 14 May from 13:00 -14:00hrs BST, entitled: “Translating and commercialising tissue and cell engineering technologies: current priorities and future perspectives.”

The next webinar will focus on the for-profit sector and companies working on tissue and cell technologies intended for clinical use. We are delighted to announce that we will have representatives from:

• Tissue and Cell Technologies 
• MesenBio
• Resolution Therapeutics

During the panel discussion, chaired by Vanessa Hearnden, we will consider the challenges and trends emerging in tissue and cell technologies and discuss career opportunities in the for-profit sector. There will be the opportunity to submit questions for the panel before and during the event. 

Please register here: https://forms.gle/E7JhhY4uRE1uUJjK9

With best wishes,
Vanessa Hearnden, Hadi Mirmalek-Sani and Hoda Eltaher

Insigneo cross-themes workshop on preclinical New-Alternative Methods (NAMs)

We invite you to attend the Insigneo cross-themes workshop on preclinical New-Alternative Methods (NAMs) that will take place on Friday 5 June from 1-5 pm in the Alfred Denny Conference Room, Alfred Denny Building.

Insigneo members, please accept/decline the invitation that should be in your Google Calendar. If you do not have a calendar invitation, please contact Sarah Black for an invitation (sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk). Please note: this event is in-person only.

The goal of this Workshop is to showcase Insigneo’s expertise in alternative methods to animal research, to stimulate collaborations across the developers of different methods, and to identify strengths we could leverage on for future applications, and also gaps in current approaches within the institute

The replacement, refinement and reduction (3Rs) of the usage of animal studies in research by using NAMs is a hot topic for the UK government and investment in this area is expected.  Moreover, regulatory bodies such as FDA and MHRA are actively encouraging companies and researchers to use NAMs to support new pharmacological products and medical devices. 

This first workshop consists of presentations from experts in Sheffield, followed by time for discussion to stimulate collaborations and integrations of NAMs. 

Agenda (Titles subject to change) 

15min: introduction, motivation, plans  (Enrico Dall’Ara, Ipsita Roy, Ivana Barbaric)

30min: focus on in vivo longitudinal imaging approaches

• In vivo imaging in mouse models - a multi-modal approach (Claire Howarth)
• Zebrafish imaging to study the skeletal system and mechano-inflammation, applications in osteoarthritis (Heba Ismail)
• In vivo animal imaging capabilities in Sheffield: microCT and microMRI (Enrico Dall’Ara, Steven Reynolds)

60min: focus on in vitro/ex vivo/biomaterials

• Ex vivo tissue models of osteoarthritis and Intervertebral disc degeneration (Christine LeMaitre)
• 3D ex vivo human bone metastases model (Penny Ottewell)
• Biomaterials for 3D cancer models (Ipsita Roy)
• 3D biomaterial based in vitro models for skeletal applications (Gwen Reilly)
• in vitro models of multiple myeloma (Michelle Lawson)
• Stem cells research (Ivana Barbaric)

15min: break

30min: focus on in silico approaches

•  Methods in structural and molecular biology (Sarah Harris)
• In silico approaches in tissue engineering (Damien Lacroix)
• Digital twin for preclinical orthopaedic application (Vee San Cheong)

30min: opportunities and challenges (Enrico Dall’Ara, Ipsita Roy, Ivana Barbaric to moderate discussion)

15min: closing remarks and next steps (Enrico Dall’Ara, Ipsita Roy, Ivana Barbaric)

45min: networking with tea/cakes/cookies

We hope to see you there in a few weeks time! 

Enrico Dall'Ara, School of Medicine and Population Health
Ivana Barbaric, School of Biosciences
Ipsita Roy, School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering

EIT2026 – 26th International Conference on Biomedical Applications of Electrical Impedance Tomography

We are delighted to announce that the EIT 2026 conference will be hosted in Sheffield, the birthplace of Electrical Impedance Tomography.

The call for abstracts closes on 1st May 2026. For more information, please visit:  https://www.eit2026.org/

Building on the rich tradition of previous international EIT Conferences, this event offers a vibrant platform for researchers and clinicians from across the globe to share their expertise and insights into the medical applications of EIT as well as Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), Magnetic Induction Tomography, and Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography.

The conference will be hosted in the Diamond from 6-8 July 2026, and is open for abstract submission in a wide range of topics, including:

• Clinical applications of Impedance Imaging
• Hardware for Impedance Imaging
• Software for Impedance Imaging
• Algorithms and Data Analysis
• Inverse Problems and Theory
• Bioimpedance, including EIS and the Dielectric Properties of Biological Tissues
• Related developments in Geophysics and Process Tomography with potential crossover to biomedical applications

We warmly invite you to join us for an inspiring exchange of ideas, innovations, and experiences in this dynamic field.

Further information, including instructions for abstract submission, can be found on the conference website: https://www.eit2026.org/

Insigneo Early Career Researcher community

Our Early Career Researcher ECR group is open to all Insigneo Members who are PhD students, postdocs, fellows, lecturers and those who self-define as an ECR.

Find out more and join

If you are not already a member of the Insigneo Institute and would like to join you can read more about the benefits and apply here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/insigneo/membership. 

ECR fellowship/grant writing Workshop

We run regular ECR fellowship/grant writing workshops (every ~2 months).

The aim is to allow ECRs to discuss with their peers any fellowship/ grant applications they might be preparing and to receive feedback in an informal setting. During each session we have one to two members presenting their work, followed by a round table discussion. This group is reserved for Insigneo ECR members who are seriously considering or are in the process of writing their first grant or applying for a fellowship. Please contact Damien Lacroix (d.lacroix@sheffield.ac.uk) or Neil Stewart (neil.stewart@sheffield.ac.uk) to express your interest in participating.

Insigneo Early Career Researcher - Career Development Seminar

Our next Insigneo Early Career Researcher - Career Development Seminar will be held on Wednesday, 29 April⋅10:15 – 11:30 am, Design Studio E08 and online (in Insigneo members calendars). We are pleased to welcome Dr Mehri Behbehani and Dr Elisabeth Kugler to talk about their career path, share advice and promote discussion with ECRs.

Monthly ECR Drop-in Sessions

We want to make sure our ECR community have a consistent space to chat with ECR committee members, ask questions, and connect with your peers. To make this happen, we are officially kicking off our Monthly ECR Drop-in Sessions.

Whether you have specific questions about committee initiatives, want to suggest ideas for future workshops, or simply fancy a chat with your peers, we’d love to see you there.

Date: 21 May, 2026
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: Public space of the F floor at Pam Liversidge Building

There’s no need to register, just drop by whenever you have a moment. At least one member of the Insigneo ECR committee will be there.

Opportunity for an ECR to join our committee as the lead for social events!

In this role, you will play a key part in fostering community connections by organizing engaging social and networking events.

If you’re passionate about building a vibrant community and have creative ideas for bringing people together, we’d love to have you on board.  Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us by emailing Sarah Black (sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk).

Zine workshop

During this networking workshop, we will learn how to create a template for a zine, use arts and crafts supplies to prepare an educational pamphlet of our own research and get the creative energy flowing while hanging out with fellow ECRs .

The event will take place on Wednesday May 20 at 12-2pm in Pam Liversidge Building, Meeting Room F13.

Zines are small, handmade and non-commercial booklets created for various purposes such as self-expression, low budget art popularisation, or information and education. ‘Zine’ (pronounced ‘zeen’) comes from the word ‘fanzine’ – fan magazine. In the educational and scientific context, zines could be a suitable medium for scientific outreach events, an addition to your poster presentation or just a fun activity for a networking event. Such an exercise can also be a great way of research communication, reflecting on how to share your complex scientific work in an accessible way. 

We would like to present the Zines created by our ECRs during the Insigneo Showcase and similar events in the future. Please see the exemplary Zines made during our first workshop: View all the zines as a flipbook 

If you have any queries, please contact m.matella@sheffield.ac.uk or sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk 

The Insigneo ECR Committee
(Malwina Matella, Neil Stewart, Juntong Lai, Hazem Toutounji, Sarah Needleman, Silvia Dirstaru, Sarah Black, Sarah Hollely, chaired by: Damien Lacroix)

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

Find out more about Insigneo membership and our members here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/insigneo/membership 

I am a second-year biomedical engineering student hoping to specialise in tissue engineering and switch onto an integrated masters for my final year, and possibly considering a placement year.

I have had some great experiences at the university, for example, I have been especially involved in being a women in STEM volunteering project leader, where I helped to promote the idea of women in areas where they are a minority to young girls in primary schools. I have also been involved in societies such as Hacksessible where my team and I were able to design and manufacture a product for a client to be able to carry items which she found difficult in her everyday life due to rheumatoid arthritis.

My favourite part about my degree course is being able to apply my knowledge and imagine how it can help people in the future. I am excited to attend events within Insigneo that can expand my knowledge about healthcare and integrate it into my degree.

I am currently working on my dissertation project, where I create scaffolds for bone regeneration. My study aims to design and compare the composite scaffold systems for bone tissue engineering. I am also a part of the Electronics team in the EWB Portable Vaccine Storage Project, where I work along with a multidisciplinary team to design circuits necessary for the storage unit. Alongside this, I am also volunteering with the Scope as a support worker, where I help at the shop floor that provides equal opportunities for disabled people. Looking forward to exploring the trends in the medtech sector while networking at Insigneo!

I spend 50% of my time working for the University and 50% of my time as a Consultant in Public Health at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals (DBTH) where I am focusing on addressing healthcare inequalities. My role as a Clinical Senior Lecturer is both a teaching and research role. I am the Public Health Lead for the MBChB course and also support the Masters in Public Health course. 

In terms of research, I am currently focusing my research activities on tackling healthcare inequalities.  

1. I have recently been the PI on a NIHR Three Schools Mental Health Programme-funded project called PRAMS (Perinatal Redesign for Accessing Mental Health Services) where we co-designed a system-level, trauma-informed, culturally sensitive framework, “Fair Care from the Start”, which enables services to tackle health inequalities and improve access to perinatal mental healthcare for underserved women.  We are now working towards gaining further funding to operationalise, implement, and evaluate the feasibility of the framework.  
2. I am also part of the University of Sheffield team within the REFRAME Collaboration, which is linked to the NIHR Maternity Disparities Consortium.  
3. I have also just been awarded some funding from NHS Charities Together for the PERIOD Project, which aims to understand the prevalence and impacts of period poverty and menstrual health inequalities with the DBTH workforce and to co-produce practical interventions that improve support and workplace culture utilising both research and quality improvement methodologies. This project is due to begin in May 2026.

Previous research has focused primarily on workforce wellbeing, particularly reducing sedentary behaviours and increasing physical activity in the workplace.

His PhD was in the sensor development for detection of fungal toxins in environmental and clinical samples (Cranfield 2004).

After an i10 Fellowship between Cambridge and Cranfield, he spent his PDRA years in Bioengineering at the University of Utah with Professor Vladimir Hlady; Cranfield working on industrial sponsored biosensor projects and at the University of Newcastle, Australia, with Professor Adam McCluskey exploring gas phase detection of explosives.

In 2009, Nick moved to the Open University, UK to take up a full academic appointment as a Lecturer on Analytical Science. In August 2018, he moved to De Montfort University School of Pharmacy in the role of Senior Lecturer, then Reader in Bioanalytical Chemistry.  In 2022, Nick won an EPSRC Established Career Fellowship to explore the development of artificial chaperones.

Nick joined the Department of Chemistry (now MPS) at the University of Sheffield in March 2023. His lab is supported by a range of funders, including EPSRC, BBSRC and CRUK. His interests lie in the development of synthetic molecular recognition materials and how they can be used to replace biological entities such as antibodies. His team explore applications in biosensing, imaging, protein and enzyme modulation and biological stability.  

Do you have news to share with us?

If you would like us to include information and/or events to this newsletter please email: info@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

Please see our useful resource detailing Training and Development Opportunities relevant to Insigneo research themes, including events, conferences and seminars from the University and across a huge range of institutions and organisations. Please note that some are internal to the University of Sheffield.

Insigneo events

2026

14 May
Joint Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (TCES) and Insigneo Institute webinar: “Translating and commercialising tissue and cell engineering technologies: current priorities and future perspectives.” 

5 June
Insigneo cross-theme workshop on preclinical New-Alternative Methods (NAMs)

18 June 2026
Insigneo Showcase 2026

A selection of Insigneo seminar recordings are available to view on our YouTube channel.

Other events

28 - 29 April
Avicenna Days (AAD) 2026 - Celebrating Avicenna Alliance 10^th Anniversary

6 May
Health Research from Home Webinar: Apple digital health

13 May
Talking to young people about the environmental sustainability of digital technologies

18 - 20 May
Pint of Science Festival 2026, Sheffield

21 May
NIHR Sheffield BRC Diabetes Workshop

26 June
Healthy Lifespan Institute (HELSI) Annual Meeting - view the programme.

29-30 June
Human + machine: clinician-led AI for tomorrow's healthcare - 2nd Annual Global AI Conference 2026 

2 July
Health Research from Home grant writing retreat

6 - 8 July
EIT2026 – 26th International Conference on Biomedical Applications of Electrical Impedance Tomography

1 - 4 September
VPH 2026

15 - 16 October
Inaugural National Paediatric Translational Research Conference - abstract deadline: 30 April 2026!

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

Vacancies

The Hitchon Family Research Fellowship in Biomedical Sensing Engineering: Insigneo Institute (closing date: 14/05/2026)

Publications

TWIST1 drives endothelial-to-mesenchymal-transition to stabilize atherosclerotic plaques (Nature Communications ) B. Tardajos Ayllon, M. Diagbouga, A. Das, S. Tian, A. Edsfeldt, J. Kalucka, J. Serbanovic-Canic, E. Chambers, J. Sun, C. Gialeli, M. Dunning, S. E. Francis, X. Li, A. Mammoto, M. Simons, H. F. Jørgensen, I. Goncalves, S. Xu, P. C. Evans

MOFs, COFs, and HOFs (Coordination Chemistry Reviews) M. Safarkhani, A. Ojaghi, 
F. N. Farzan, A. Mohammadi, F. Taghavimandi, R. Umapathi, M. Akrami-Hasan-Kohal, 
S. A. Bencherif, M.-A. Shahbazi, Y.-K. Han, I. Roy, Y. S. Huh

A computational study of adiposity-associated factors in the inflammatory process of osteoarthritis (Journal of Theoretical Biology) J. Lai, D. Lacroix 

DXA-derived three-dimensional finite element models of the femur: validation against CT-based models (Bone) A. Aldieri, P. Bhattacharya, M. Paggiosi, R. Eastell, 
L. Grassi

Diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide, transfer coefficient of the lung for carbon monoxide and forced vital capacity/diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide in suspected systemic sclerosis-associated pulmonary hypertension: insights from the ASPIRE registry  (ERJ Open Research) H. Smith, A. A. R. Thompson,  M. Akil, S. Alabed,  C. Billings, A. Charalampopoulos, K. Dwivedi,  C. A. Elliot, A.Hameed,  A. Haque, N. Hamilton, C. Hill, J. Hurdman, R. Kilding, K.-P. Kuet, S. Rajaram, A. M. K. Rothman, I. Smith, A. J. Swift, D. G. Kiely,  R. Condliffe

A Novel Fully Automated Deep Learning Model for Coronary Artery Calcification Detection on Computed Tomography (Diagnostics) T. N. Alnasser, A. Hokmabadi, M. J. Sharkey, A. Maiter, K.Dwivedi, M. Salehi, C. Johns, S. Rajaram, K. Karunasaagarar, D. G.Kiely, S. Alabed, A. J. Swift

Rapid calibration of atrial electrophysiology models using Gaussian process emulators in the ensemble Kalman filter (Scientific Reports) M. Mamajiwala, C. Corrado, C. W. Lanyon, S. A. Niederer, R. D. Wilkinson, R. H. Clayton

UK Consumer Protection and the Debate for Reform in Medical Device Liability (Laws) N. T. H. Farr, E. J. Owen, R. M. Bhalekar 

Editorial for “Analysis of Upper Airway Morphology Using Four-Dimensional Dynamic MRI With Active Deep Learning-Based Automatic Segmentation” (Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging) N. J. Stewart, J. M. Wild

Automatic Segmentation of Placenta from MR images Using a Novel BiGC U-Net (IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics) D. Wu, S. Coldman, G. Zhou, X. Li, E. Whitby, L. Guo

Toward an understanding of real-world mobility in Parkinson’s: insights from enhanced contextualisation using GPS-derived location and data-driven modeling of walking speed (Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience) C. Kirk, R. Z. U. Rehman, B. Galna, S. Ranciati, E. Packer, N. Ireson, V. Lanfranchi, C. Mazzà, L. Rochester, A. J. Yarnall, S. Del Din