July 2026

Congratulations to Nahal on her PhD graduation!

Our collaborator Elena Scarpa (University of Cambridge) has led a project using the beautiful sox10-driven EB3-GFP transgenic line that Sarah and Mar generated in our lab.  The line can be used to visualise growing microtubule ends (EB3 comets) in the ear and in neural crest cells, and is based on previous published studies (Stepanova et al., 2003 and Butler et al., 2010).  

The manuscript is now available on bioRxiv:

Congratulations to first author Soraya Villaseca and all the team!  

The video clip below shows the transgenic line in action:

EB3 comets (growing microtubule ends) in cells of the developing zebrafish ear.

Imaging: Nikon confocal microscope equipped with an NSPARC detector.

Sarah, Aaron, Ethan and Tanya all attended the lively 13th European Zebrafish Meeting in Vienna, Austria.  Aaron and Tanya gave talks, and Sarah and Ethan presented posters. 

Aaron delivering his talk in the Morphogenesis and Organogenesis session

June 2026

We attended the Bateson Centre Symposium, where Nahal gave an excellent talk on her research project, and other lab members presented posters.  Many thanks to Phil Elks and Emily Noël for organising a great day of science!

Tanya gave a talk on zebrafish olfactory ionocytes and rod cells at the UK Cilia and Centrosome Network Spring Meeting at the University of Leeds.  Many thanks to Colin Johnson, Pleasantine Mill and the leadership team for organising such a great meeting.

Ethan gave an excellent talk on his PhD work in the 3rd year Postgraduate Symposium in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

May 2026

Aaron gave an excellent talk on his PhD project work at the DRN and MCB annual Postgraduate Research Symposium.

Congratulations to Aaron and Ethan, who have both been awarded travel grants to attend the 13th European Zebrafish Meeting in Vienna in July.

Aaron's grant is from the European Zebrafish Society, and Ethan's is from the Institute of Physics.

April 2026

A warm welcome to Keira Bond, who is joining us from April–June as a part-time technical assistant.  Keira is currently a final year student on our Biochemistry and Genetics degree programme, and has completed a genomics placement at the Julia Garnham Centre. She holds an Elite Sports Performance Scholarship and has represented the USA in National and World Championship Cycling events. Keira is also the Co-President of the University of Sheffield Cycling club, and a Volunteer Coach for the Sheffield Youth Cycling Club.

https://thebritishcontinental.co.uk/2024/11/26/keira-bond-interview-from-boulder-to-cobbles/

Nahal, Sarah and Aaron busy at the microscopes, analysing gene expression staining patterns

Aaron presented a poster of his PhD work at the Faculty of Science Doctoral School Showcase 2026:

It was a lively event, with around 100 posters from PhD students across the Faculty of Science.

Tanya gave a talk "Pierced ears and ear rings: Epithelial fusion and fracture in the developing zebrafish inner ear" at the Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, hosted by Professor Tim Saunders, with a full day of discussions with staff and students.

March 2026

Sarah and Tanya presented a poster of the lab's work at the BSDB Spring Meeting 'Molecules to Morphogenesis' at the University of Warwick.  

As part of a showcase of the Human Developmental Biology Resource (HDBR) Atlas, there was a beautiful 3D-printed human inner ear on display:

Model of an 8-week old human embryonic inner ear.  In the embryo, the organ is about 6 mm long at this stage.  Generated from data in the HDBR atlas

 

February 2026

Goodbye and good luck to Haseeb Qureshi, who has finished his postdoc in the lab and leaves us for new adventures.  Pints, pies and peas at Nottingham House for a good Sheffield send-off!

Emily Noël and Haseeb taking part in last year's Big Walk for neuroscience research 

- featured on the University's page for this year's walk!

The lab also enjoyed a delicious Iranian dinner at Qashqai Kitchen, Sheffield.  Thanks to Nahal for organising!

January 2026

 Happy New Year!

Congratulations to Anna Tythacott, who has graduated with an MSc in Biomedical Science!

Nahal hosted five Y12 students from High Storrs School, giving them a tour of the labs and facilities and an opportunity to observe zebrafish embryos.  They also explored the University of Sheffield campus and joined in a lab meeting.

November–December 2025

Getting ready for Xmas early with sparkly jumpers and paper hats.  
Thanks to Nahal for organising Xmas lunch for the C21 labs!

Spinning the disks! - Training session on the spinning disk confocal microscope

Tanya and Freek van Eeden ran another successful MSc practical class in Developmental Genetics, where students got to learn zebrafish CRISPR injection.

Lab outing for pizza!

October 2025

Nahal and Aaron spent a rewarding morning talking to students at High Storrs School at their Careers Day about further study and careers in the Biosciences.

September 2025

Ethan presented a poster, and Tanya gave a talk, at the 1st UK Zebrafish meeting, held at Exmouth and the Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter.  It was a lively meeting, full of excellent science and discussions, and we enjoyed meeting up with friends, colleagues and collaborators.  Many thanks to the local organisers Steffen, Soojin, Greg, Nik and Carol for such a great meeting!

Nahal returns to join the lab as a postdoc, continuing her work on disease modelling and characterising new CRISPR-generated mutants with interesting ear phenotypes!  

Nahal ran the Sheffield 10K in support of Crohn's and Colitis UK.

Our collaborative paper on zebrafish olfactory ionocytes is now out in Chemical Senses.  Former PhD student King Yee Cheung, jointly supervised by Suresh Jesuthasan, shares first authorship with Júlia Peloggia, a former PhD student in the Piotrowski lab.

August 2025

Many congratulations to Nahal Shahidan, who successfully passed her PhD viva, and gave an excellent pre-viva talk.  Many thanks to Emily Noël and Graham Ladds (University of Cambridge) for examining.  Nahal now takes a well-earned rest before returning to the lab as a postdoc in September.

Congratulations also to Anna Tythacott, who has completed her MSc research project in the lab, supervised by Nahal.  Anna gave an excellent poster presentation of her work as part of the MSc examination.

July 2025

Tanya gave a lecture on the use of zebrafish chemical screening for drug discovery at the 44th European School of Medicinal Chemistry (ESMEC), in beautiful Urbino, Italy.  Many thanks to the organisers for the invitation, and to all the students for their hard work and enthusiasm on the course!

In Sheffield, we hosted a visit from our collaborator Dr Giselle Wiggin from Nxera Pharma, a GPCR-based drug discovery company based in Cambridge.  Giselle gave a seminar and met with lab members, in addition to discussing collaborative projects. 

Later in the month, Nahal paid a reciprocal visit to the Nxera Pharma labs in Cambridge.  She gave a talk on her PhD project on the adhesion GPCR Adgrg6, and enjoyed a day of discussions with colleagues there.  She also met up with former PhD student Anzar Asad, who is now employed at the company and doing well:

Anzar -- Nxera Pharma team -- Nahal

We also enjoyed two excellent one-day meetings held in Sheffield: a BSDB Northern Developmental Biology meeting, at which Haseeb gave a talk, and a symposium for the Bateson Centre for Disease Mechanisms.

Congratulations to former undergraduate summer project student Isabella Russell-Smith, who graduated with a First Class MBiomedSci degree this month.  Issi will be soon be starting a PhD at Imperial College London (UK Dementia Research Institute) supervised by Dr Samuel Barnes, with the aim of developing new treatments for Alzheimer's disease.

June 2025

New lab photo!

Tanya attended the 2025 UK Cilia and Centrosome Network Meeting at the Institute for Child Health in London, and a memorial symposium at the Crick Institute to remember and celebrate the life of David Ish-Horowicz.  There are several touching obituaries of David available online, including those by Ilan Davis and Phil Ingham.
 

Haseeb, together with Emily and Corinna from C21, completed the Big Walk to raise funds for research into neurological diseases.

May 2025

Sunny and warm - time for an ice cream in Weston Park

Tanya's chapter on development of the semicircular canals, otoliths and otoconia is now out in Current Topics in Developmental Biology: Development of the Senses, eds. Guy Richardson and Doris Wu.  Free to download until July:  https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1l8PbFzn7WIEK

An image from the lab is currently on display in the wonderful exhibition 'Anatomy at Sheffield: from scalpel to virtual dissection and beyond’, curated by Daniela Cacciabue, in collaboration with the University Library.  The opening event on 2nd May included a fascinating and entertaining talk on the cochlea by Professor Matthew Mason (University of Cambridge). 

The developing inner ear in a live two-day-old zebrafish embryo.  Sensory hair cells are highlighted with Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP).  Image taken by Dr Esther Maier; transgenic line originally from the Baier lab.

April 2025

Tanya gave a talk on epithelial morphogenesis in the zebrafish inner ear at the European Zebrafish Principal Investigators' meeting, held at the Institut du Cerveau in Paris, France.

March 2025

Aaron, Haseeb and Sarah presented posters at the fabulous Biologists @100 meeting in Liverpool, celebrating 100 years of the Company of Biologists.  The venue was the Area and Convention Centre (ACC) Liverpool, located on the former King's Dock, with spectacular views across the Mersey.  It was great to catch up with former lab member Kate Hammond, now Director of the BSc Genetics degree programme at the University of Liverpool.

King Yee Cheung visited from Singapore, and popped into the lab to help complete revisions on our collaborative manuscript on zebrafish olfactory ionocytes.  King has recently started postdoctoral work in the lab of Adam Claridge-Chang at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.

January–February 2025

Tanya paid a visit to the lab of Berta Alsina at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, to act as external examiner for one of Berta's PhD students, who gave an excellent talk and thesis defence.  It was great to catch up with Berta and the other members of the thesis committee, Alejandro Barallo Gimeno and David Raible.  Later we were joined by Cristina Pujades to explore the beautiful Catalan countryside and coastline.

December 2024

The C21 Labs enjoyed a Christmas meal and white elephant gift exchange at the Norfolk Arms in Ringinglow.

🎄Happy Holidays!🎄

November 2024

Our collaborative manuscript on zebrafish olfactory ionocytes is now posted as a preprint on bioRxiv, with King Yee as joint first author.  The work is a collaboration with the Jesuthasan and Piotrowski labs, and uses datasets from the Jain, Lichtman and Engert groups.

Haseeb and Tanya both presented talks at the one-day BSDB Autumn Meeting Mechanisms of Septation Tissue Fusion in Development and Disease at King's College London, organised by Joe Rainger and Jeremy Green.

Haseeb also presented a talk of his computational image analysis work at the Royal Microscopy Society Meeting Frontiers in Bioimaging, held in Oxford.

Nick attended the PicoQuant 20th International Course Principles and Applications of Time-resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy in Berlin, Germany.

Nicole presented a poster of her summer research project, supervised by Haseeb, at the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Showcase at The Octagon.  The Showcase is an annual exhibition and celebration of all the research completed by SURE students over the previous summer.

Tanya visited the Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter, as external examiner for Gemma Sutton, who defended an excellent PhD thesis.  The following day Tanya gave a seminar, hosted by Professor Steffen Scholpp, and spent the day discussing science with friends and colleagues.

Tanya, Sarah and Nahal ran a successful MSc practical, teaching students how to design and microinject CRISPR reagents into zebrafish embryos, and analyse the results by PCR and restriction digest.

October 2024

Nahal presented a poster of her PhD work at the 17th Zebrafish Disease Models Conference (ZDM17) in Lisbon, Portugal.  Nahal's attendance at the conference was funded by a Company of Biologists Travel Grant.  The poster generated lots of discussion and was a great catalyst to meet with other PhD students using similar techniques in their work.