Events in The Medical School

Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease seminars

Thursday 6th February 2020

Title: "Through the looking glass, trypanosome infections in zebrafish: seeing is believing!"

Speaker: Dr. Maria Forlenza, Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Venue: Lecture Theatre 3, F Floor Medical School.

Time: 12:30pm - 1:30pm

Abstract: Trypanosomes are important disease agents of humans, livestock and cold-blooded species, including fish. Motility is central to their adaptation to the host’s environments and pathogenesis. However, visualising the behaviour of trypanosomes resident in a live vertebrate host has remained unexplored. Furthermore, trypanosomes are well known for their evasion mechanisms and ability to manipulate the host’s response. In this study, we describe an infection model of zebrafish (Danio rerio) with Trypanosoma carassii, a species closely related to the mammalian trypanosome T. brucei ssp. By combining high spatio-temporal resolution microscopy with the transparency of live zebrafish, we describe for the first time in vivo, the swimming behaviour of trypanosomes in blood and tissues of a vertebrate host and reveal novel swimming behaviours, adaptation strategies and attachment mechanisms. Next, taking advantage of the availability of transgenic lines marking innate immune cells, we report on the differential response of macrophages and neutrophils to T. carassii infection in vivo. Interestingly, we observed that trypanosome infection triggers a marked macrophages activation leading to the formation of foamy macrophages and an exacerbated pro-inflammatory response. To our knowledge this is the first report describing the swimming behaviour of trypanosomes in vivo and the development of foamy macrophages during an extracellular trypanosome infection.

If you would like to meet with one of the speakers during their visit, please contact Victoria Palmer who will be able to assist.

Neuroscience seminars

There are currently no upcoming seminars.

Oncology and Metabolism seminars

Friday 24 January 2020

Oncology & Metabolism Seminar Series Hosted by Oncology 

Title: "The role WSB-1 in hypoxic breast cancer: from metastatic potential to targeting DNA repair”

Speaker: Dr Isabel Pires, University of Hull Venue: Lecture Theatre 3, F Floor Medical School.

Time: 1:00pm - 2:00pm

Abstract: Dr. Isabel Pires is a lecturer and group leader at the University of Hull. Isabel did her PhD at the University of Manchester/CRUK Manchester Institute with Professor Caroline Dive. She then moved to the University of Oxford for a postdoc in Professor Ester Hammond's group at the CRUK/MRC Institute for Radiation Oncology. There Isabel became interested in understanding how the tumour microenvironment, particularly tumour hypoxia, leads to alterations in cellular behaviour, such as increased genomic instability, resistance to therapy, and increased metastatic potential. Of particular interest was the therapeutic targeting of these altered pathways for overcoming the inherent radio-resistance of hypoxic regions. Isabel has been at the University of Hull for since late 2012, and her work continues to focus on characterising cellular signalling pathways associated to hypoxia and their exploitation for therapeutic benefit, with a particular emphasis in improving response to radiotherapy.

If you would like to meet with one of the speakers during their visit, please contact Gillian Griffiths - g.l.griffiths@sheffield.ac.uk - who will be able to assist.

Friday 7 February 2020

Professor Christine Le Maitre, Sheffield Hallam University, Title: TBC, Lecture Theatre 2, F Floor, The Medical School, University of Sheffield

28 February 2020

Dr Simon Boulton, The Francis Crick Institute, London, Title: TBC, Lecture Theatre, Weston Park Hospital

Friday 20 March 2020

Dr Andrew Blackford, University of Oxford, Title: TBC, Lecture Theatre 3, F Floor, The Medical School, University of Sheffield

Internal seminar series

The department also holds internal seminars - for more information, see the full programme.