Insigneo by Leticia Campello

What is Insigneo, what it has to offer to undergraduates at the university and my experience as an intern at the institute

“The Insigneo Institute for in silico Medicine is Europe’s largest research institute dedicated entirely to the development, validation, and use of in silico medicine technologies.”

First, let me explain what in silico actually means. In biology, studies can be conducted either in vivo, on living organisms (plants, animals or humans) or in vitro, on living matter (microorganisms, cells, tissues) inside an artificial confinement. In silico indicates studies conducted using computer modelling and simulation. Computer chips are made of silicon, hence in silico is the Latin for “within the silicon”.

The Insigneo Institute for in silico Medicine is a partnership of the University of Sheffield and the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It was established in 2012 and has attracted many academics and clinicians from several departments within these institutions. Insigneo performs cutting-edge research in areas of fundamental and applied biomedical modelling, imaging and informatics which directly contributes to the prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment planning and execution, or management of diseases.

There are currently 45 different projects affiliated with the Insigneo Institute and many of them are also available for undergraduate students. Every summer the institute offers up to 15 internships for University of Sheffield undergraduates studying engineering, computational sciences, physical sciences, life sciences or medicine and dentistry. This is an amazing opportunity to get involved in a 8-12 weeks-long project in which you will work on experimental and computational projects related to in silico medicine.

If you were wondering what it is like to work for this institute - I’m going to tell you a little bit of my experience as an intern at Insigneo. The title of my project was “finite element simulations within a multi-scale framework to predict bone remodelling” which mainly focused on building a CAD geometry of a bone remodelling unit which would bridge the tissue and cell scales, investigating the effect of surface cell deformation when the finite element model of a single cell-tissue model is under shear stress. Also, my project had the aim to validate an analytical model by creating a multiple cell-tissue model, as you can see in the images below.

Through this project, I was able to practice and apply concepts of finite element modelling, such as mesh convergence, and structural analysis that I learnt during my course. Even though I had help from my supervisor and other researchers from the institute, the best part of the internship was that I was required to do everything by myself. This allowed me to develop and hone various technical as well as professional skills. For example, in order to build the CAD geometry and to perform the structural analysis in all models, I had to learn how to use ABAQUS, which was a completely new software to me. Also, I had to do literature review during the entire internship with the purpose of finding the right material properties to be applied in all models.

My only concern, before starting the internship, was “how am I going to learn and understand about bone remodelling if I have never done this before?” Believe me, by the end of the internship I was surprised at how much you can learn from reading and from other researchers. Of course you do not need to know every single thing about whatever your project is, if it is not your field of study, but a reasonable amount of background reading and literature review will help you understand everything you need to know in order to finish your project! I can guarantee I had the best summer as an intern at the Insigneo institute and everything I learnt while I was there, I was able to apply when I started my final year project, which surprisingly is also about bones!  

If you are interested in learning more about Insigneo, what they do and how to apply for the summer internship, you can register your interest and receive notification when the application form is available. Fill your details on this form: https://goo.gl/forms/yr9CZ5pmY6eHdKeU2 or access their website https://insigneo.org/. The full eligibility criteria, application form and list of available projects will be available by mid-February with an application deadline of 12th March.