Thursday 15 February 2024

January 2024

 Happy New Year!

Tanya presented a poster of the lab's work at the 10th Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators, held at the Asilomar Conference Centre, Pacific Grove, California.  She then travelled north to Seattle to visit labs at the University of Washington, and gave a seminar to the Fish Club there.  Many thanks to Dave Raible and his lab members for hosting!

A cold but sunny day on the University of Washington campus, with Mount Rainier fully out of the clouds in the distance


December 2023

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The C21 labs celebrated the festive season with a pub lunch and White Elephant gift exchange.  

Happy Holidays!

November 2023

The lab took part in BioFest 2023, a 3-evening public engagement event and celebration of research in the Biosciences at Sheffield.  We displayed images and videos of our research, ran quizzes, and got everyone drawing a giant image of the inner ear!




Nick and Haseeb attended the Crick Bioimage Analysis Symposium and napari training workshop, held at the Francis Crick Institute, London.

Tanya attended the Stem Cell Fate Choice: Mechanisms and Modelling meeting at the University of Bath.

Thursday 5 October 2023

October 2023





Many congratulations to King Yee Cheung, who gave an excellent pre-viva talk on her PhD project on olfactory rod cells, and successfully passed her viva.  King has recently completed two busy and productive years of her A*STAR-funded project at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, supervised by Suresh Jesuthasan.  Many thanks to Freek van Eeden and Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi for examining!

A warm welcome to Ethan Giles, who starts his PhD with us, jointly supervised by Ashley Cadby in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.  Ethan comes to us with a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from Sheffield Hallam University, including an Erasmus year abroad in the lab of Juan Bolaños at the University of Salamanca, Spain.  Ethan's project is funded by an EPSRC Neuroscience Institute Studentship.

A renewed welcome to Aaron Bailiff, who is now starting a PhD with us as a staff candidate, funded by the Wellcome Trust.  Aaron also graduated from Sheffield Hallam University with a BSc (Hons) in Biology, including a year's experience working as a Research Assistant at the University of Sheffield in the group of Heba Ismail.

We enjoyed an excellent series of talks at the Autumn Bateson Centre Symposium, and Tanya also attended the 3rd iGPCRNet meeting (online).

Wednesday 27 September 2023

September 2023

Members of the lab attended a 'Watch Party' for virtual attendance of the European Developmental Biology Congress 2023, and enjoyed some excellent talks.


Tanya also helped to organise a virtual art exhibition to accompany the conference, run by the BSDB and The Node.  This included curating a collection of beautiful historical prints of embryos dating between 1752 and 1933.  The exhibition remains open until 25th October 2023 and is accessible here.



Earlier in the month:

 Enjoying the last warm days of summer with an ice cream in Weston Park

We wish Nahal well as she returns to Sosei Heptares, Granta Park, Cambridge, for a 3-month placement.

Issi attended a Genetics Society workshop at the University of Bath and gave a presentation of her summer project:

Tanya gave a talk at the 58th Inner Ear Biology Workshop in London:




August 2023

Goodbye and good luck to Issi Russell-Smith and Marvin Mesbah, who have now completed their summer research projects with us.

Friday 21 July 2023

July 2023

Images from the lab went on display at the NHS 75: Shaping the Future exhibit at the Sheffield Winter Gardens.  Thanks to Lynette Hodges for organising production of the posters, and to members of the public for their interest and insightful questions!


Nahal gave a series of talks on her undergraduate and PhD work to Year 10 students as part of a Careers Day at High Storrs School, Sheffield.

It was lovely to hear from former Research Technician Mar Marzo, now working as a Research Assistant in the lab of Saskia Hogenhout at the John Innes Centre, Norwich.

Tanya attended the 12th European Zebrafish Meeting, held in Kraków, Poland.  Tanya chaired a session and presented work on cell shape changes in the developing ear from Ana's PhD project, while King's PhD project work on olfactory rod cells was presented by her co-supervisor Suresh Jesuthasan (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore).  

Ahead of the meeting in Poland, Suresh visited Sheffield to give a seminar and to run some pilot experiments imaging ciliary motility and fluid flow in the zebrafish olfactory pit.

Congratulations to Anzar, Sarah and Nahal, and our collaborators Antonio de la Vega de León and Giselle Wiggin, on the publication of a screen for modulators of Adgrg6 signalling in Basic and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology: