Insigneo Newsletter - May 2024

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 2024: registrations close 31 May!

Exciting fundamental science and beyond: from innovative research to translation and commercialisation.

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 plenary talk from Prof Peter Coveney from the Centre for Computational Medicine at UCL;
• Sessions from our five research themes:  Biomaterials / Biomechanics / Cell engineering; Computational modelling in medicine; Imaging life; 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 - We are pleased to offer a prize for the best poster for each research theme and a best student poster prize sponsored by the Society of Chemical Industry. 
• Networking opportunities with industry, funders, academics and clinicians.

There's one week left to register, please RSVP by 31 May 2024!

Insigneo Executive Director awarded two prestigious fellowships

Insigneo Executive Director Jim Wild, Professor of Magnetic Resonance Physics, from the School of Medicine and Population Health has been elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Jim was elected as Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in recognition of his contribution to biomedical and health research in imaging.

He is one of 58 biomedical and health scientists elected to the Academy this year.

Jim has also been elected a Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) for outstanding achievements in MRI of the lung by introducing novel hyperpolarized gas MRI methods into clinical practice.

Jim said: “It’s an honour to be elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and it is brilliant that our research in the field of hyperpolarised gas and proton MRI methods has received this recognition, not only from the academy but also from the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, my research community.  I want to recognise the contribution of amazing colleagues at the University of Sheffield over the years who have worked towards these common goals and thank them for their support.”

New cardiac research will save women’s lives by improving detection of heart failure

Insigneo Research Theme Director for Imaging Life, Professor Andy Swift is a co-author on a new study that has advanced how heart failure is detected in women – meaning more female patients can be diagnosed, and at an earlier stage.

Researchers from the Universities of Sheffield, East Anglia (UEA) and Leeds have been able to fine-tune how magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to detect heart failure in women’s hearts, making it more accurate. 

Professor Andy Swift, from the University of Sheffield’s School of Medicine and Population Health and Co-author of the study, said: “Women’s hearts are biologically different to men’s.  

“Our work suggests that in heart failure women's hearts may respond differently in response to increases in pressure.” 

Virtual Mouse and Human Twins for optimising Treatments for Osteoporosis (VMHTsOP) project

The VMHTsOP project aims at developing the first inter-species Virtual Mouse-Human Twin for predicting bone adaptation over time and optimising biomechanical and/or pharmacological treatments for Osteoporosis.

It is a 5-year project that will start in September 2024, led by Prof Enrico Dall’Ara at the University of Sheffield's School of Medicine and Population Health and Insigneo Institute. The project has been selected by ERC-consolidator grant and funded by the EPSRC through the EU Guarantee fund.

We have four VMHTsOP research positions available at the Insigneo Institute, see the vacancies listings below.

‘Digital twin’ heart modelling project will monitor patients virtually

Insigneo members from the University of Sheffield's faculties of Engineering and Health are part of a team of interdisciplinary researchers who will create and test the first ‘digital twin’ heart models for a group of chronically ill NHS patients.

Researchers will build and evaluate replicas of patients’ hearts online to find out if they provide better monitoring and ultimately better care.

The team working on the £8m CVD-Net project will design and build fully accurate virtual copies – ‘digital twins’ - of participants’ hearts from health data, including medical records, hospital scans and information from wearable and implanted monitors.

Over time, these will be updated continuously by real-time data from either patient-implanted or wearable medical devices. The research team hope the digital twin hearts will allow them to accurately track changes to each patient’s disease progression and responses to treatment, as well as enabling personalised predictions.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals to host new Government-funded national HealthTech Research Centre Network

A new Government-funded national HealthTech Research Centre Network is to come into force from 1 September 2024.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been chosen to host a new Government-funded national HealthTech Research Centre Network which will support the development of technologies and innovations to support care for conditions including cancer, mental health, neurodegeneration and dementia, ageing, respiratory disease and cardiovascular conditions.

The Network, known as the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) HealthTech Research Centre Network, will identify and influence national health technology priorities to advance technological healthcare innovation across the UK.

It will also give national leadership and coordination to 14 newly established NIHR HealthTech Research Centres (HRCs) from 1 September 2024. The new NIHR HRCs, which are based in leading NHS organisations across the country, came into force on 1 April 2024 and were awarded almost £42m to drive life-changing research into health and care technologies for the next five years.

Professor Wendy Tindale OBE, Scientific and Innovation Director at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Director of the NIHR HRC Network and of the NIHR HRC in Long Term Conditions (Devices for Dignity), said: “It’s a huge privilege to be the lead for the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre Network. Working in partnership with all 14 HRCs will be key to creating a thriving ecosystem of industry, academia, NHS and other stakeholders to bring innovative health technologies more rapidly to patients. The range and collective experience of the HRCs is vast and there is a real opportunity for this new Network to create a step change in impact. We have a proven track record of leading collaborative partnerships with a range of stakeholders, including patients and the public, so we are delighted to be bringing these skills to the benefit of the Network.”

Verification, Validation and Uncertainty Quantification Training Session at Sano Centre for Computational Science

Insigneo members Jake Salmonsmith and Ivan Benemerito travelled to the Sano Centre for Computational Science in Krakow, Poland, and delivered a half-day training session on Friday 12 April.

The training session was about the application of Verification, Validation and Uncertainty Quantification, and focused on its use in carrying out experimental and computational work in conjunction with each other, in order to increase confidence in the results from each and to overcome some of their inherent weaknesses.

The concepts were discussed in a general sense initially, before drawing upon Jake and Ivan’s recent work on characterising blood flow through an intracranial aneurysm using laser imaging and computational simulations.

Jake will be repeating the training session at the University of Sheffield on 29 May (Insigneo members check your inbox for your invitation). If you have any questions please contact Dr Ivan Benemerito (i.benemerito@sheffield.ac.uk).

Promotions

Congratulations to Professor Paul Watton, Department of Computer Science who was promoted earlier this year.

If we have missed any promotions and you would like to be included in a future edition please let us know!

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

We will share a link to our Online Training Opportunities document here each month.

Insigneo events

29 May
Sano training on the application of Verification, Validation and Uncertainty Quantification for actionable research - Insigneo members, check your inbox for your invitation and registration link. 

14 June
Insigneo Showcase 2024

26 June
Insigneo Imaging Life Seminar: Understanding women’s host-microbiomes and improving health outcomes

1 July
Joint Insigneo Biomaterials, Biomechanics and Cell Engineering theme Mechanobiology Summer event
Speaker: Guillaume Charras, UCL
Insigneo members please check your calendar for registration details.

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

Other events

3 - 7 June
The Human Digital Twin Summer School Barcelona

10 June
HELSI symposia: Computer Science & Statistics - save the date!

1 July
NIHR ARC Yorkshire & Humber Lunch & Learn: Practicalities of research with NHS data

10 June
HELSI symposia: Bioscience - save the date!

10 -12 July
BRS Annual Meeting 2024, Sheffield

16 July
NIHR ARC Yorkshire & Humber Lunch & Learn: Using routine data for decision making

4 - 9 September
VPH2024 

9 - 10 September
BORS Conference 2024, Sheffield - abstract submission open!

9 - 13 September
OpenFest2024 - submit proposals by 26 May 2024.

11 - 13 September
8th International Symposium on Academic Makerspaces (ISAM) 2024, Sheffield

2025

24-25 March
Physics of Life conference  - save the date!

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

Vacancies

• Research Associate in preclinical musculoskeletal imaging and biomechanics (closing date: 04/06/24)
• Research Associate in computational musculoskeletal biomechanics (closing date: 04/06/24)
• Research Technician (closing date: 04/06/24)
• PhD Opportunity: A biochemo-mechano multi-scale computational model to predict bone adaptation over space and time (closing date: 10/06/24)
• PhD Opportunity: Biomechanics of internal fixation methods for ankle fusion (closing date: 18/06/24)
• PhD Opportunity: Efficient in silico trials for bone diseases (closing date: 28/06/24)
• PhD opportunity: Transformable origami robots at Sheffield Microrobotics Lab (closing date: 30/06/24)

Publications

The use of microphysiological systems to model metastatic cancer (Biofabrication) C. E Jackson, N. H. Green, W. R. English F. Claeyssens

Assessing input parameter hyperspace and parameter identifiability in a cardiovascular system model via sensitivity analysis (Journal of Computational Science) H. Saxton, X. Xu, T. Schenkel, I. Halliday

Combining PTH(1-34) and mechanical loading has increased benefit to tibia bone mechanics in ovariectomised mice (Journal of Orthopaedic Research) B. C. Roberts, V. S. Cheong, S. Oliviero, H. M. Arredondo Carrera, N. Wang, A. Gartland, E. Dall'Ara

Advances in COPD imaging using CT and MRI: linkage with lung physiology and clinical outcomes (The European respiratory journal)  A. F. Elbehairy, H. Marshall, J. H. Naish, J. M. Wild, G. Parraga, A. Horsley, J. Vestbo

The Use of Virtual Tissue Constructs That Include Morphological Variability to Assess the Potential of Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy to Differentiate between Thyroid and Parathyroid Tissues during Surgery (Sensors) M. Matella, K. Hunter, S. Balasubramanian, D. Walker

Automatic segmentation of lower limb muscles from MR images of post-menopausal women based on deep learning and data augmentation (PLoS ONE) W. H. Henson, X. Li, Z. Lin, L. Guo, C. Mazzá, E. Dall’Ara

Systematic pulmonary embolism follow-up increases diagnostic rates of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and identifies less severe disease: results from the ASPIRE Registry (European Respiratory Journal) C. Durrington, J. A. Hurdman, C. A. Elliot, R. Maclean, J. Van Veen, G. Saccullo, D. De-Foneska, A. J. Swift, R. Smitha, C. Hill, S. Thomas, K. Dwivedi, S. Alabed, J. M. Wild, A. Charalampopoulos, A. Hameed, A. M. K. Rothman, L. Watson, N. Hamilton, A. A. R. Thompson, R. Condliffe, D. G. Kiely

Age, sex, and lung volume dependence of dissolved xenon-129 MRI gas exchange metrics (Magnetic Resonance in Medicine) G. J. Collier, L. J. Smith, L. C. Saunders, A. J. Swift, H. Marshall, N. J. Stewart, G. Norquay, P. J. C. Hughes, A. A. R. Thomspson, J. M. Wild

Strengthening preclinical testing to increase safety in surgical mesh (Nature Reviews Urology) N. T. H. Farr, V. L. Workman, C. R. Chapple, S.MacNei, C. Rodenburg  

A systematic review of artificial intelligence tools for chronic pulmonary embolism on CT pulmonary angiography (Frontiers in Radiology) L. Abdulaal, A. Maiter, M. Salehi, M. Sharkey, T. Alnasser, P. Garg, S. Rajaram, C. Hill, C. Johns, A. M. K. Rothman, K. Dwivedi, D. G. Kiely, S. Alabed, A. J. Swift

Opportunities and obstacles in non-invasive brain stimulation (Frontiers in Human Neuroscience) J. Toth, D. L. Kurtin, M. Brosnan, M. Arvaneh