Insigneo Newsletter - December 2021

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! If you would like to add 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).
Please ensure that you submit news and events with a minimum of one week's notice.

Insigneo Showcase 2022 - save the date!

We are excited to announce the Insigneo Showcase will return for 2022 to celebrate the Institute's 10th year.  The event is planned for the Friday 8 July 2022 and will be held at The Diamond building so make sure you put this date in your diaries!

We will announce more details in the new year but you can read about the previous Insigneo Showcase which was held in 2019.

Insigneo Research Theme Directors

At the Insigneo Winter Symposium Jim Wild introduced the new Insigneo Research Theme Directors who will take forward the Institute's five research themes and together will form the Insigneo Research Board working to maximise the potential for cross-faculty collaboration.

Research Theme Directors

Biomaterials/Biomechanics/Cell engineering (provisional title)

• Paul Evans
• Ipsita Roy
• supported by Paul Hatton

​Biomedical imaging

• Andy Swift
• Ashley Cadby
• Steve Matcher
• Alice Pyne
• supported by Steven Sourbron

Computational modelling in medicine

• Becky Gosling
• Enrico Dall'Ara
• supported by Ian Halliday

Smart Devices and sensors

• Alex Rothman
• Claudia Mazzà

Healthcare data /AI

• Tim Chico
• Haiping Lu
• supported by Amaka Offiah, Allan Lawrie and Steve Wood

New members

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

She has led numerous EPSRC, EC, NIHR and Innovate UK projects as PI. She is in the Executive Board of Sheffield Robotics.  Prof. Dogramadzi established the medical robotics group at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, before moving to University of Sheffield in 2020.

Full profile 

I completed my MPhys in Physics with Medical Physics here in Sheffield in 2015. During this time, I completed a project in the application of virtual reality for surgical planning, and a project in developing a computer environment capable of performing machine learning for image segmentation. Through these projects and a summer research placement, I found a passion for applying theories from physics into medicine, particularly within medical imaging. 

My research is centred on the development of a complex flow phantom, capable of performing quality assurance on a range of quantitative flow imaging modalities. The phantom employs the ring vortex as its reference flow – a complex, yet well-characterised and predictable flow which can be easily controlled.  Currently compatible with ultrasound modalities, my primary aim is to develop a MRI-compatible prototype. 

British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre appoints Prof Tim Chico as new Personal Monitoring Data Thematic Lead and Associate Director

Tim is joining the BHF Data Science Centre, led by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), on a part-time secondment basis to provide strategic leadership to identify and prioritise key areas of work in the use of large-scale personal monitoring data – such as use of health-tracking apps and wearables – in cardiovascular research and healthcare.Tim will work in collaboration with the cardiovascular research community, clinicians, industry, patients and the public to shape and develop approaches that link personal monitoring data to other types of health data to improve understanding, monitoring and management of cardiovascular disease.

Tim is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and honorary Consultant Cardiologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Research Director for Healthcare Data / AI in the Insigneo Institute for in silico Medicine at the University of Sheffield. He brings a breadth of expertise in cardiovascular research and medicine and is an Academy of Medical Sciences “Future Leader in Innovation, Enterprise and Research”.

Exercise Science Graduate Student Competition award for Eloise Briggs

Congratulation to Insigneo member Eloise V Briggs (final year PhD student) for her award in the Exercise Science Graduate Student Competition at the virtual Equine Science Symposium for her oral presentation (Briggs, E.V. and Mazzà, C. (2021) 26  Detecting equine gait events in field conditions. In: Harris, P. and Burk, A.O., (eds.) Journal of Equine Veterinary Science. Virtual Equine Science Symposium, 01-04 Jun 2021, Virtual conference). This work has also been published as a journal article, link below.

Repeat of vaginal mesh scandal could be prevented by new early warning system

A new way of testing biomaterials that could help to avoid a repeat of the vaginal mesh scandal, has been developed by researchers at the University of Sheffield.

In a study led by Insigneo member Dr Nicholas Farr from the University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, researchers have developed an oxidative stress test that can form the basis of an early-warning system to identify biomaterials that are not suitable for clinical use inside the human body.

Technical validation of real-world monitoring of gait: a multicentric observational study

Mobilise-D project researchers, led by Insigneo member Claudia Mazzà from the University of Sheffield's Department of Mechanical Engineering, have published their protocol for validation of digital mobility outcomes in BMJ Open.

Existing mobility endpoints based on functional performance, physical assessments and patient self-reporting are often affected by lack of sensitivity, limiting their utility in clinical practice. Wearable devices including inertial measurement units (IMUs) can overcome these limitations by quantifying digital mobility outcomes (DMOs) both during supervised structured assessments and in real-world conditions. The validity of IMU-based methods in the real-world, however, is still limited in patient populations. Rigorous validation procedures should cover the device metrological verification, the validation of the algorithms for the DMOs computation specifically for the population of interest and in daily life situations, and the users’ perspective on the device.

This protocol will provide the stakeholders, the first comprehensive, multimodal solution to validate real-world mobility. Notably, the protocol described here has been accepted by the European Medical Agency as part of the Mobilise-D process for the regulatory qualification of real-world mobility performance biomarkers in Parkinson’s disease.  In Sheffield, the protocol is being deployed in collaboration with the NIHR Sheffield BRC.

Mobilise-D to launch a webinar series, starting in February 2022

The series will kick off with a bang, featuring a discussion about THE ALGORITHMS and Digital Mobility Outcomes (DMOs). 

The first series of five webinars will take place twice a month (February to April 2022, 90 minutes each) where the Mobilise-D team will present and discuss cutting-edge thinking on mobility assessments, their technical validation approach, and examples of data and tools used.  

They will share insights into how their research, validation, and evaluation of real-world continuous digital measures of mobility can provide novel insights into health care conditions. They will talk about how digital mobility assessment using wearable sensor systems have the potential to capture walking performance in patient’s natural environment and how a consortium of 34 partner institutions from academy, MedTech industry and Pharma industry can work together in research and beyond.  

The webinars will be online, open to the public, and you have the possibility to interact with them. More information about the registration will come soon!  

What is Mobilise-D? Mobilise-D is a European project funded by Innovative Medicines Initiatives 2, aiming to develop a comprehensive system to monitor and evaluate people’s gait based on digital technologies, including sensors worn on the body. The project focuses on conditions that often affect mobility, namely chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and hip fracture recovery.

Sheffield Tomography Centre (STC)

A new Tomography Centre is open in the University of Sheffield's departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, encompassing a Zeiss Xradia Versa 620 X-ray Microscope (X-ray CT) and various in-situ mechanical rigs for 3D/4D imaging. 

The call for proposals for Q1 2022 is open until 23:59 on 14th January 2022. This will be for scans run between February and the end of April 2022. 

If you are interested in using the Centre facilities and wish to find out more (the application process, future quarterly proposal call dates, the instrumentation, costs, etc) please contact the Centre’s Experimental Officer Dr Ria Mitchell at r.mitchell@sheffield.ac.uk. They require you to first discuss any potential projects with them before submitting a proposal. Ria can then add you to the STC Blackboard page, where all of the Centre information is hosted, and add you to the lab mailing list. 

Additionally, if you would like to run a (free) proof of concept test scan to see if this method is of use to you, or to generate data for future grant proposals, please get in touch. 

Additional information can be found at the following links:

• A recording of their opening seminar. This details the instrumentation, how they are going to operate, costs, and the application process. 
• The STC website 
• The STC Twitter page 

Postponed - Professor Iain Wilkinson Memorial

Due to recent changes in covid-19 social distancing guidelines, we are very sorry to say that the Iain Wilkinson memorial seminar that was scheduled for December 16th is now postponed.

We will be in touch with a rescheduled date when we have more confidence that Iain’s friends and colleagues can reconvene safely in person.

Guest Lectures, Conferences & Seminars

Insigneo events

20 January
Insigneo research theme workshop: Biomaterials/Biomechanics/Cell engineering 15:00 - 16:30

28 January
Insigneo Seminar: In silico pulse wave databases for haemodynamic studies

3 March
Insigneo research theme workshop: Smart devices (15:00 - 16:30)

29 March
Insigneo research theme workshop: Computational Medicine (11:00 - 12:30)

26th April
Insigneo research theme workshop: Biomedical Imaging (11:00 - 12:30)

24 May
Insigneo research theme workshop: Healthcare data  (11:00 - 12:30)

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

8 July
Insigneo Showcase - save the date!

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

20 December 2021
Sano Seminar: Biosignals in personalized healthcare: perspectives and challenges (Ekaterina Kutafina)

2022

10 January 
Sano Seminar: Andrew Narracott, Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease, The University of Sheffield

13 January
BioMedEng Association - Industry event

13 January
RSE Lunchbytes: Parallelisation: an easy trick to speed up your code?

17 January
Sano Seminar: Scientific Programmers Team: past and future (Tomasz Gubała)

18 January
17th ScHARR Mini Master Class in Health Research - Professor Suzanne Mason - Undertaking data-centric healthcare research: Experiences from urgent & emergency care systems

17 February
RSE Lunchbytes: High Performance Computing (HPC) at Sheffield and Beyond

17 March
RSE Lunchbytes: Software engineering in High Energy / Particle Physics

25 March
11th Annual Mellanby Centre Research Day - abstract deadline: 28 January 2022

23 - 27 May
VPH Institute -  6th Summer School: Models & Simulations for highly multifactorial disorders

26 - 29 June 
27th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics in Porto, Portugal - abstract deadline: 31 January 2022

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

5 September
RSE Conference 2022, Newcastle

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

8 - 9 September 
BioMedEng22, UCL

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

Vacancies

Research Associate in Machine Learning for Medical Image Analysis
(Closing date: 12 January 2022)

PhD Opportunity: MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Improving the outcome of surgical treatment for liver cancer: combining advanced medical imaging and computational fluid dynamics for personalised treatment planning
(Closing date: 14 January 2022)

Publications 

Research output affiliated to Insigneo in Scopus (please ensure papers are affiliated to the Insigneo Institute by including the words "Insigneo Institute for in silico Medicine"):

Subchondral bone microarchitecture and mineral density in human osteoarthritis and osteoporosis: A regional and compartmental analysis (Journal of Orthopaedic Research) Y. Li, Y. Liem, E. Dall'Ara, N. Sullivan, H. Ahmed, A. Blom, M. Sharif

Morphological Response in Cancer Spheroids for Screening Photodynamic Therapy Parameters (Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences) J. R. Aguilar Cosme, D. C. Gagui, N. H. Green,  H. E. Bryant, F. Claeyssens

In Vitro Low-Fluence Photodynamic Therapy Parameter Screening Using 3D Tumor Spheroids Shows that Fractionated Light Treatments Enhance Phototoxicity (ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering) J. R. Aguilar Cosme, D. C. Gagui, H. E. Bryant, F. Claeyssens

Subchondral bone microarchitectural and mineral properties and expression of key degradative proteinases by chondrocytes in human hip osteoarthritis (Biomedicines) Y' Li, Y. Liem, Z. Zamli, N. Sullivan, E. Dall’Ara, H. Ahmed, G. M. Sellers, A. Blom, M. Sharif 

The importance of mimicking dermal-epidermal junction for skin tissue engineering: A review (Bioengineering) M. Aleemardani, M. Z. Trikić, N. H. Green, F. Claeyssens

Effects Induced by Osteophytes on the Strain Distribution in the Vertebral Body Under Different Loading Configurations (Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology) D. Marras, M. Palanca, L. Cristofolini

A novel characterisation approach to reveal the mechano-chemical effects of oxidation and dynamic distension on polypropylene surgical mesh (RSC Advances) N. T. H. Farr, S. Roman, J. Schäfer, A. Quade, D. Lester, V. Hearnden, S. MacNeil, C. Rodenburg

Electrospun Fiber Alignment Guides Osteogenesis and Matrix Organization Differentially in Two Different Osteogenic Cell Types (Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology) R. M. Delaine-Smith, A. J. Hann, N. H. Green, G. C. Reilly

The Impact of Virtual Fractional Flow Reserve and Virtual Coronary Intervention on Treatment Decisions in the Cardiac Catheter Laboratory (Canadian Journal of Cardiology) R. C Gosling, Z. Adam, D. S. Barmby, J. Iqbal, K. P. Morgan, J.D. Richardson, A. M. K. Rothman, P. V. Lawford, D. R. Hose, J. P. Gunn, P. D. Morris