Insigneo Newsletter - June 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

The Insigneo Showcase 2024 took place at the University of Sheffield's The Wave building and was attended by over 220 guests from across academia, healthcare and industry.

The theme of this year’s event was the journey from innovative research to translation and commercialisation, and a celebration of the exciting research collaborations within the institute which are developing fundamental science with translational healthcare potential to benefit people in our region and beyond.

The day featured inspirational talks showcasing work from across our five research themes and a fascinating plenary talk from Professor Peter Coveney, Professor of Physical Chemistry from University College London.  Professor Coveney has collaborated with Insigneo Institute researchers for many years via the EU H2020 Centre of Excellence in Computational Biomedicine, CompBioMed. His talk on ‘Digital twins: The virtual future of medicine’ provided insights on the challenges and opportunities ahead.

We were also delighted to welcome Professor Maciej Malawski, Director of the Sano Centre for Computational Personalised Medicine from Krakow, Poland who gave a keynote talk and gave us an excellent overview of the Sano Centre’s work.  Sano Centre are collaborative partners of the institute and sit on our new Advisory Group. The Insigneo  Advisory Group also includes representatives from organisations within the University of Sheffield which are strategically aligned with Insigneo such as the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), Centre for Machine Intelligence, DataConnect and Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR).

Thank you to everyone who attended who contributed to making it such an interesting and stimulating day. It’s been fantastic to see the breadth of research from across our membership brought together in one day.  Thank you to everyone who presented posters and contributed to our research slideshow.

We would also like to congratulate our poster prize winners:

Insigneo Poster Prizes

For the best poster for each Insigneo research theme :

• Hamza Zafar - Smart devices and sensors
• Caitlin Ryan - Biomaterials/Biomechanics/Cell engineering
• Scarlett Strickland - Imaging life
• Amy Harding – Computational modelling in medicine
• Mian Kou - Healthcare data/AI

Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) awards:

For the students whose posters best represent both Insigneo research and the field of chemistry:

• Jemima Pilgrim-Morris - Best overall student poster
• Daniel Mohamed - Best Yorkshire & Humber student poster

Damien Lacroix visits the National Centre for Spinal Disorders

Insigneo Deputy Director, Professor Damien Lacroix, visited the National Centre for Spinal Disorders (NCSD) in Budapest, Hungary as part of ongoing research and clinical collaborations with one of the major spinal orthopaedic hospitals in Europe.

Damien provided guidance to researchers of the in silico biomechanics lab led by Dr Peter Eltes.

The NCSD is already a partner in the European Project MySpine that Damien coordinated and they are also a partner of the current European Project Metastra working on the prediction of vertebral fracture risk for patients with bone metastases.

Damien said: “It was very interesting to listen to the clinicians and researchers describe their clinical needs around new methods of fixations for spinal disorders. The aim of this visit was to further strengthen our collaboration by using our engineering expertise in solving their clinical problems”.

EPSRC South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub: medical device regulations training session

The South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub are delighted to open registrations for a free online training session on Medical Device Regulations. 

Wednesday 17 July
10:00-11:30 on Teams

If you're a healthcare innovator or have an idea for a medical device or software, understanding the complex medical device regulations is crucial to making your concept compliant, bringing your product to market, and ultimately helping patients.

Adhering to medical device regulations ensures patient safety, builds trust with your customers, guarantees the uniformity and reliability of medical devices, and opens opportunities for international trade.

This free online training will cover what qualifies as a medical device (including software), key considerations when designing your medical device, and how to ensure your product complies with medical device regulations. The session will conclude with a Q&A segment.

BORS 2024 - abstract deadline extended!

Due to multiple requests, the abstract submission deadline is being extended by ONE WEEK ONLY - so the new deadline is Friday 5 July 2024.

We are delighted to announce that we are hosting the 2024 British Orthopaedic Research Society (BORS) Annual Meeting at the University of Sheffield's The Edge venue on 9 - 10 September 2024.

Guest speakers:

• Prof Cathy Holt, Cardiff University
• Mr Martyn Snow, Royal Orthopaedic Hospital
• Prof Eleftheria Zeggini, Helmholtz, Munich
• Dr Sybille Grad, AO Institute
• Prof David Pierce, University of Connecticut

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

Insigneo Early Career Researcher (ECR) - Career Development Seminar

We are establishing a series of seminars focused on career development for the Insigneo ECR community. Talks will be given by Insigneo members or alumni on their career experiences in academia, industry, government, policy and beyond, and sharing advice and promoting discussion with ECRs.

For our second session, on Friday 5 July at 10:00 (planned to be hybrid, room TBC), we have two speakers:

Dr Jan Wolber is Head of Technology Leader Group at GE Healthcare, and has an Honorary Professorship with the University of Sheffield. He did his PhD at the Institute of Cancer Research and since 2000 has been working in the Medical device industry.

Dr Erica Montefiori is Higher Operational Researcher at the UK Civil Service (Home Office), where she has been for 2 years. Prior to that, she completed a PhD at the University of Sheffield and a subsequent Research Associate position with Insigneo.

We will be sending round a calendar event invitation shortly. Please can you respond to indicate if you are attending in person or online.

P.s. If you are not already an Insigneo member, apply for membership and join here.

Please also pass this information on to friends / colleagues!

Congratulations to new Insigneo Member Dr Isabel Christie on her  £1,891,988 Wellcome Trust Career Development Award for research into Hyperpolarised 129Xe Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopic Brain Oximetry.  

Reductions in brain blood flow are the earliest biomarker of cognitive decline and neurodegeneration. Brain perfusion declines during ageing (Christie 2022 JCBFM) yet the relationship between brain blood flow and hypoxia is not well understood (Christie 2023 Cell Reports). The aim is to perform a detailed investigation of a brain imaging method, to determine whether this method is sensitive to brain oxygen and useful as a midlife biomarker for poor brain health. I propose to use laboratory animals to reverse translate a non-invasive quantitative, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method which follows the uptake of 129Xe gas into the brain.129Xe brain imaging was pioneered by physicists in Sheffield and is safe for humans (Rao 2019). However, the physiological sensitivity of the method is unclear; this proposal addresses this knowledge gap. 

The Wellcome Career Development Awards provide funding for mid-career researchers from any discipline who have the potential to be international research leaders. Using the funding they will develop their research capabilities, drive innovative programmes of work and deliver significant shifts in understanding related to human life, health and wellbeing.

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 

My research focuses on advancing techniques to enhance hyperpolarised xenon-129 (HP-129Xe) production via spin-exchange optical pumping. Large-scale HP-129Xe gas MRI studies for investigating pulmonary conditions rely on the ability to rapidly produce HP-129Xe gas with high nuclear polarisation. Using NMR, absorption spectroscopy and finite-element modelling, we are able to probe the gas dynamics and spin-transfer processes within our system. These insights are used to optimise the geometry and operational parameters (temperature, pressure, flow rate) of the polariser.

Additionally, I am developing 129Xe and proton (1H) MRI techniques to study gas dynamics in the airways, aiming to improve our understanding of respiratory conditions and treatment.

Broadly speaking, my research interests lie in the mathematical modelling of tissue growth and development. Currently, I am focused on developing bio-chemo-mechanical models of the bladder. The aim is to develop a digital twin of the bladder to better understand its response to outlet obstruction and to improve the outcomes of therapeutic interventions.

After a prize winning PhD at UCL and extensive research experience in pre-clinical imaging Isabel relocated to Sheffeld two years ago to try her chances at winning a grant. Her research interests include brain hypoxia, cerebral perfusion, astrocytes and energy homeostasis in the mammalian brain. She works in vivo with whole animals (mice and rats) using various MRI methods (ASL, fMRI) and two photon imaging (calcium activity of astrocytes and penetrating arterioles). 

Isabel has just been awarded a Wellcome Career Development Award for a project entitled Hyperpolarised 129Xe Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopic Brain Oximetry.  She will be working in the Alfred Denny using the 7T Bruker magnet.

Prior to my PhD studies I completed my MEng in Bioengineering at the University of Sheffield, and a year in industry working in quantitative systems pharmacology. 

My research project is focused on the generation of regional lung function, such as ventilation and perfusion, from Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance lung images acquired without the use of contrast agents. My research involves many fields such as mathematical modeling of lung ventilation and perfusion; computational imaging, involving image registration and image processing; and machine/deep learning synthesis of lung function surrogates.

He was then a postdoctoral researcher in Dundee (half a year) and then Bologna (a year and a half), where he worked on probabilistic models for computation - a knowledge that may be transferable to biological or medical situations.

In 2019 he obtained a Lecturer position in Aix-Marseilles University, where he carried his work on logic, programming, and program verification; but where he also met mathematicians and doctors who were working together in applying mathematics to everyday medical practice. He has since worked notably on the consequences of paediatric medulloblastoma on the cerebral development of children; on the prediction of melanoma recidive; on prostate cancer diagnosis via PSA dosing... We also gave frequent conferences and workshops to the general public and also to high schoolers.

Charles joined the department of Computer Science of the University of Sheffield in August 2023. He is keen on applying his knowledge of mathematics and computer science to medical and biological projects, and favors the development of new approaches, that may for instance use ODE modeling, estimation theory, Markov processes, verification applied to biological systems.

Charles welcomes any ideas, feel free to contact him.

Full profile

I am the Project Manager for an EPSRC-funded Prosperity Partnership. I joined the POLARIS group to pursue my PhD in 2014, following the completion of my degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield. I am also a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, as well as the Faculty of Health Research Staff Association.

My primary research interests are around optimising contrast enhanced imaging for assessing lung perfusion and developing software solutions to automate analysis and to derive novel biomarkers of disease. I am particularly interested in harmonising imaging studies and developing artificial intelligence models to reduce computation time of metrics from lung images.

I am working on the METASTRA project under Prof Enrico Dall’Ara, to characterize the human vertebra under mechanical loading conditions.

I completed my PhD in Applied Mechanics from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India.

My previous research focuses on the mechanics of the cellular materials. The research intended to describe the macroscopic mechanical behaviour of cellular materials by evaluating the deformation behaviour at microscale using experimental and computational techniques. Specifically, the research looks to quantify the internal deformations in cellular materials using the current existing techniques. It also looks forward to improving the current techniques and developing the new approaches. 

 With a background in Pharmaceutical Engineering, Prarthana obtained both a B. Tech and M. Tech in this field.

During her master's project, Prarthana was introduced to the fascinating world of tissue engineering while working on a wound healing project. This experience sparked a deep interest in the field and motivated her to pursue a Ph.D. in the same area.

Currently, her research focuses on the development of porous polymeric 3D scaffolds for jawbone regeneration. By leveraging her expertise in pharmaceutical engineering and tissue engineering, Prarthana aims to create innovative solutions that can improve patient outcomes and advance the field of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

Prior to this, I have completed degrees in Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the Universities of Sussex and Leeds respectively.

My project addresses the need for faithful and reproducible disease models to better navigate the treatment landscape of lung diseases. Disease modelling is a valuable tool which furthers the understanding of disease pathophysiology and subsequent development of the therapeutic landscape. Currently, modelling types can be categorised as either two or three dimensional and in vitro or in vivo. 2D modelling types are both low cost, highly reproducible, however, they limit the field of view as they lack complexity of the lung microenvironment. On the other hand, 3D in vivo models, i.e. animal models despite being the current gold standard in physiologically relevant modelling, have limitations due to lack of translatability, high costs and ethical issues. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a family of bacteria-derived esters that offer high tunability and biocompatibility, and have been successfully used both in vitro and in vivo applications.

My project aims to recapitulate the native microenvironment on two levels. Firstly, by mimicking the mechanical properties using PHAs and additive manufacturing techniques. Secondly, the cellular composition that will be addressed by using established cell lines that are found within the lung. Potentially resulting in a 3D in- vitro model that affords the reproducibility of 2D models and the clinical relevance of in vivo models. 

Rob is Head of Chemistry at the University of Sheffield. He retains adjunct professorial positions at Lancaster University, where he was previously the Director of the Material Science Institute, and within the Future Industries Institute at the University of South Australia, Adelaide.

Rob holds a BSc and PhD from the University of Durham. He started his academic career at the University of Sheffield, where he held the Chair in Biomaterials from 2001. He has since held the positions of Institute Research Director, Dean of Research and PVC at the University of South Australia.

As well as being an academic, with over 250 publications, Rob is a successful entrepreneur and brings +30 years experience in technological plasma, working on plasma-based technologies for life science, healthcare and medical products. He co-developed the myskin™ and cypatch™ technologies for the treatment of chronic wounds and burns, and the advanced cell culture technology, PureCoat™. Rob is an inventor on more than 10 distinct patent families, supporting products sold globally.

He has led teams that have won in excess of £125M funding from government, industry, investors and charities. He collaborates globally with groups in the USA, UK, Continental Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia.

In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

Rob cofounded with Dr Endre Szili (UniSA) Plasma-4 (www.plasma-4.com) a company that is developing novel plasma (ionised gas)-materials technology for the treatment of a range of clinical indications.  

Rob rejoined the University of Sheffield in October 2022.

Full profile

I am a clinician by background, in the last 12 months of Paediatric Respiratory subspeciality training, working in Leeds and Sheffield. This involves caring for children with chronic and complex chest conditions, such as Cystic Fibrosis, Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia and Asthma.

My research is focused on developing lung MRI imaging techniques for premature babies with Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD) for clinical application in the UK. BPD is a disease caused by an arrest of lung development due to being born very early. I am interested in how we can improve the long-term management of these fragile children as little is understood about the physiology of the disease and we have very few effective treatments. 

Outside of work I have two boys under the age of five that keep me very busy!

One of them in 2019, was to move to the UK and join the speciality training programme to become an Obstetrician and Gynecologist. My current post within the university is an exciting opportunity for me to step back from my long clinical training programme and be involved in research that will help us understand more about preterm birth.

Prematurity is a big problem globally, with consequences for many pregnant people, families, and neonates. Even though it affects about 1 in 10 babies, we still don't know enough about its causes and therefore we do not have a good test to identify high-risk pregnancies for preterm birth. The project I am currently part of is developing a novel device, hoping to address a significant obstetric challenge and enhance our understanding and prevention of preterm birth. 

I have always enjoyed working within a team. I am particularly proud of the big team I am part of at the university. I believe our project, which combines the fields of obstetrics, biophotonics, and engineering, is a good example of collaboration. 

 My research project is on the development of low-cost perfusion MRI for microvascular screening'.

I completed my MSc in Biomedical Engineering at Queen Mary University of London. Afterwards, I moved to New York to work as a Research Associate at Cardiovascular Research Foundation where I collaborated with several surgical clinicians and fellows on percutaneous coronary intervention projects. 

Previously, he obtained his PhD from the University of Glasgow, supervised by Professor Iadh Ounis and Professor Craig Macdonald and focused on the research topic of developing review text-based recommender systems. After that, he joined the web intelligence group of University College London (UCL) as a postdoctoral researcher, supervised by Professor Emine Yilmaz and worked on knowledge-augmented task-oriented dialogue systems.

His current research interests are interdisciplinary research topics between information retrieval and natural language processing, with a special focus on conversational AI, retrieval augmented generation and their many potential applications, including personalised conversational agents and automatic healthcare assistants. 

Full profile

Prior to this position I worked as a Lead Scientist at a Veterinary Tissue Bank, where my main responsibilities included stem cell isolation for conditions such as osteoarthritis in pets. I obtained my bachelor's degree in Biomedical Science from Liverpool John Moores University, and I continued my studies in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine MScR at The University of Chester. 

My current research is focused on the regenerative ability of fat tissue and understanding the underlying mechanisms that make fat tissue such a promising natural treatment option. Fat tissue contains a vast array of different cells and bioactive molecules within its secretome. My research aims to elucidate how this can be harnessed to treat scarring of soft tissue, such as the skin.

I am originally from Chester, my main hobbies include weight-lifting, reading and painting.

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

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.

5 July
Insigneo Seminar: Dr Simone Tassani and Dr Luca Modenese

Insigneo Early Career Researcher (ECR) - Career Development Seminar

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

Other events

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

5 July
HELSI Bioscience Symposium

10 -12 July
BRS Annual Meeting 2024, Sheffield

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

17 July
EPSRC South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub: medical device regulations training session

4 - 9 September
VPH2024 

9 - 10 September
BORS Conference 2024, Sheffield - abstract deadlline extended to 5 July 2024!

9 - 13 September
OpenFest2024

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

• 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)
• Research Associate in Computational Tools for Cardiovascular Digital Twins  (closing date: 04/07/24)
• PhD Opportunity: Improving oxygen monitoring technology for young children and infants (closing date: 10/07/24)
• PhD Opportunity: A biochemo-mechano multi-scale computational model to predict bone adaptation over space and time (closing date: 10/07/24)

Publications

Inhibition and reversal of a TGF-β1 induced myofibroblast phenotype by adipose tissue-derived paracrine factors (Stem Cell Research and Therapy) S. Higginbotham, V. L. Workman, A-V. Giblin, N. H. Green, D. W. Lambert, V. Hearnden 

Right thalamic volume mediates impact of the dopamine beta-hydroxylase gene on the endowment effect (Behavioural Brain Research) T. Wang, J. Zeng, W. Huang, X. Xiong, L. Su

The Effects of Fucoidan Derived from Sargassum filipendula and Fucus vesiculosus on the Survival and Mineralisation of Osteogenic Progenitors (International Journal of Molecular Sciences) D. Gupta, D. C. Martinez, M. A. Puertas-Mejía, V. L. Hearnden, G. C. Reilly

Culture-acquired genetic variation in human pluripotent stem cells: Twenty years on (BioEssays)  J. P. Vales, I. Barbaric

Modelled impact of virtual fractional flow reserve in patients undergoing coronary angiography (VIRTU-4) (Heart) M. Ghobrial, H. Haley, R. Gosling, D. J. Taylor, J. Richardson, K. Morgan, D. Barmby, J. Iqbal, A. Krishnamurthy, R. Singh, D. Conway, I. Hall, Z. Adam, N. Wheeldon, E. D. Grech, R. F. Storey, A. Rothman, G. Payne, M. N. Tahir, S. Smith, J. Cooke, S. Hunter, N. Cartwright, S. Sadeque, N. P. Briffa, A. Al-Mohammad, L. O'Toole, D. Rogers, .P V. Lawford, D. R Hose, J. Gunn, P. D. Morris

Real-World Gait Detection Using a Wrist-Worn Inertial Sensor: Validation Study (JMIR Formative Research) F. Kluge, Y. E. Brand, M. E. Micó-Amigo, S. Bertuletti, I. D'Ascanio, E. Gazit, T. Bonci, C. Kirk, A. Küderle, L. Palmerini, A. Paraschiv-Ionescu, F. Salis, A. Soltani, M. Ullrich, L. Alcock, K. Aminian, C. Becker, P. Brown, J. Buekers, A.-E. Carsin, M. Caruso, B. Caulfield, A. Cereatti, L. Chiari, C. Echevarria, B. Eskofier, J. Evers, J. Garcia-Aymerich, T. Hache, C. Hansen, J. M. Hausdorff, H. Hiden, E. Hume, A.Keogh, S. Koch, W. Maetzler, D. Megaritis, M. Niessen, O. Perlman, L. Schwickert, K. Scott, B. Sharrack, D. Singleton, B. Vereijken, I. Vogiatzis, A. Yarnall, L. Rochester, C. Mazzà, S. Del Din, A. Mueller

Incorporating pathological gait into patient-specific finite element models of the haemophilic ankle (Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology) H. G. Talbott, R. A. Wilkins, C. L. Brockett, M. Mengoni