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07/10/2022
During this year's National Postdoc Appreciation Week, my colleagues nominated me to be recognised as an outstanding postdoc for my mentoring of thesis students and interns, as well as my EDI work. You can read my nomination here: link.
Edit on 12/11/2022: My nomination was approved by the Researcher Development Team of the University of Sheffield.
Edit on 31/12/2022: My nomination is on the right. The left panel shows a separate recognition award from Professor Brown, my head of department.
01/10/2022
This week, I stepped down as the research representative on my department's EDI committee and the department's cultural competence representative. Although the experience taught me a lot, I could have achieved more had I received more support from the department to promote linguistic justice.
09/09/2022
I spent the week in Porto, where I attended the VPH2022 conference. I gave a talk about my PRIMAGE-related research myself (link) and Matteo Italia presented our collaborative work on optimising chemotherapy for neuroblastoma. Between now and the end of the year, my focus will be on writing two manuscripts regarding these two subjects.
16/06/2022
Our abstract about the PRIMAGE project has been accepted for an oral presentation at the Virtual Physiological Human Conference, which will take place in September in Porto, Portugal. I look forward to giving the talk.
Our abstract about neuroblastoma's clonal evolution has also been accepted for an oral presentation at the same conference and for a poster presentation at the 12th European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology, which will take place in September in Heidelberg, Germany. Matteo Italia will present on our behalf.
14/06/2022
Alvaro Andre Yupanqui Rivera, an undergraduate bioengineer, has been offered the Insigneo summer internship. We will spend the summer modelling the intracellular mechanisms of asymmetric division in neural crest progenitor cells.
06/06/2022
My colleagues from the University of Bologna, Barbara and Marco, developed a new approach to scale separation in the early phase of the PRIMAGE project. I am proud to have contributed a little to this study. Read more about it in our new paper: link.
Edit: Elsevier has kindly authorised 50 days' free access to the article (link).
10/05/2022
I am pleased to announce that Luke Jones, an undergraduate student in our department, and I managed to secure a bursary from the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scheme. This summer, we will build on Will Shaw's work from last year by building a biological lattice-gas cellular automaton of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, arguably the worst type of cancer.
28/03/2022
Today, I was awarded another grant for the Insigneo Summer Research Programme. It will fund a student to study the mechanisms regulating asymmetric cell division in neuroblastoma cells. Are you an undergraduate student at the University of Sheffield? Are you interested in graph theory, Boolean networks, and cancer biology? If yes, please write to me.
07/03/2022
Today, I gave a talk at Tapton School. Using my ongoing work in the PRIMAGE project as an example, I tried to impress on the sixth-formers the relevance of quantitative methods to the life sciences. Here are the slides: link.
27/02/2022
I finished the Doncaster Chess Congress 2022 with a result of 2.5/5. I had a few opportunities to achieve my highest score in a tournament as yet, but I failed to capitalise on those promising positions.
04/02/2022
A calmer one: link.
11250205.
A Strange Attractor, acrylic on canvas, 2022.
31/01/2022
I had an interesting evening. It started with an attempt to combine two very different forms of abstraction. When it became clear that I could not make unconstrained expression and Cubist rigidity work together on my canvas, I let my intuition salvage the mess and finished with this improvised piece. The title is a tribute to Jenny Holzer. Link.
11250205.
2022 is Stupid, acrylic on canvas, 2022.
26/10/2021
This morning, I gave a talk about the neuroblastoma model during the cancer modelling session of the Mathematical Modelling in Biomedicine workshop this year (slides: link). I would like to thank Doctor Anastasiia Mozokhina for inviting me to speak at the event.
As a member of the EDI committee, I am proud to announce that we, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield, successfully renewed our Athena SWAN Silver Award for another five years last month.
27/09/2021
This is a video explaining how the PRIMAGE project is contributing to decision making in the clinical management of paediatric cancers: link.
26/09/2021
Yesterday, I finished my first painting in more than three years, also my first under the pseudonym 11250205: link.
11250205.
Ken in the Dark Ocean, acrylic on canvas, 2021.
On a completely unrelated note, Johns Hopkins University certified my successful completion of the Genomic Data Science Specialisation the day before yesterday: link.
15/09/2021
Here are the slides of my BioMedEng21 talk: link.
Here are a video and the slides of Professor Barbara De Melo Quintela's talk at the CompBioMed Conference 2021, given on behalf of our consortium: slides and video.
01/09/2021
Looking forward to presenting my latest research at BioMedEng21 on 6/9 (Monday). My colleague in the PRIMAGE project, Professor Barbara De Melo Quintela, is presenting our scale separation approach at the CompBioMed Conference 2021 on 15/9.
05/08/2021
My paper on CD4+ T cells is now online: link.
23/06/2021
I just learnt that I had been selected to give an oral presentation at BioMedEng21. The conference will be held at the University of Sheffield on the 6th and 7th September this year. My talk will be about the first multicellular model of neuroblastoma.
14/06/2021
Today, two undergraduate students from the University of Sheffield joined me and Dr Dawn Walker for summer research. Rory Deignan (theoretical physics) will be funded by my grant from the Insigneo Summer Research Programme, while Will Shaw (computer science) will be funded by the SURE (Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experiences) scheme. Rory will work on the MYCN enigma project. Will's goal is to build an agent-based model of DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma). Welcome aboard!
09/06/2021
I am pleased to announce that Dr Dawn Walker and I have started a collaborative project with Dr Fabio Dercole from the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy and his PhD student, Matteo Italia. Matteo will continue Ritvik's work on optimising the combination of cisplatin and etoposide for neuroblastoma treatment.
10/05/2021
Today, I gave a lecture introducing around 100 advanced undergraduate and master's students at the University of Sheffield to partial differential equations.
05/05/2021
I was just awarded a grant for the Insigneo Summer Research Programme. It will fund a student's work in the MYCN enigma project. If you are an undergraduate student at the University of Sheffield and you are interested in joining the project, please write to me before 21/05.
20/01/2021
On behalf of the EDI Committee, I have invited Siena Castellon, an internationally recognised neurodiversity advocate, to give a talk about the benefits and challenges of being neurodiverse in the Department of Computer Science on 27/01/2021.
28/11/2020
This month, I interviewed some undergraduate applicants to Columbia University virtually for the early decision cycle. I enjoyed hearing the stories of these bright, motivated young people. Regardless of the admission outcomes, they are all brilliant and have what it takes to realise their dreams. Remember, no university can judge a person's worth. I wish them all the best.
26/10/2020
The Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee had the first meeting of the academic year last Wednesday (21/10). In preparation for building the 2021 Athena SWAN action plan, we reviewed statistics relating to gender equality in the Department of Computer Science at Sheffield. We also discussed other gender issues; cultural competence; and wellbeing, neurodiversity, and accessibility.
04/10/2020
Ritvik Mehra, a computer science undergraduate student, has started his thesis research under my and Doctor Dawn Walker's supervision. He will continue Abigail's project about clonal evolution in neuroblastoma.
13/07/2020
The Mensa Foundation has announced that I am the 2020 International Intellectual Benefits to Society Award winner (link). Every year, at most one Mensan outside the USA is honoured with this award. It recognises an application of the Mensan's intellectual abilities that results in a tangible benefit to society. Consideration is given to the number of individuals impacted. When I was selected for developing a virtual immune system, there were more than 140,000 Mensans in 100 countries.
Disclaimer: I am not the principal investigator of this project. The project was conceived by my mentor, Dr Tomas Helikar. I produced the work under his supervision.
13/05/2020
I have secured a research grant for the Insigneo Summer Research Programme. This summer holiday, Abigail Barlow, an MMath student in her final year at the University of Sheffield, will study the mechanisms of drug resistance used by neuroblastoma. Welcome aboard!
05/05/2020
I have been awarded the Engineering Researcher Society Development Opportunity Fund by the University of Sheffield. I intend to use it to bolster my bioinformatics and statistical modelling skills.
08/04/2020
The COVID-19 lockdown continues to make me an unproductive researcher. On a more positive note, the PRIMAGE position paper is now online: link.
24/03/2020
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, my invited talks happened as scheduled, albeit remotely in the case of the Oxford talk. The slides can be found in the section entitled 'Works'. Sadly, my guest lecture was cancelled.
08/03/2020
I am giving two invited talks about emergent behaviours in immunology and oncology in the next two weeks, one at the University of Southampton on 13/3 and one at the University of Oxford on 20/3. Additionally, I am giving a guest lecture to a group of BSc and MSc students in Sheffield on 16/3. The objective is to introduce them to multi-approach and multi-scale modelling.
04/11/2019
Melody Parker, a graduate student in the MSc computational medicine programme at the University of Sheffield, has joined Doctor Dawn Walker and me for her dissertation research. She will study the MYCN enigma.
01/11/2019
I attended the PRIMAGE consortium meeting (30/10) in Valencia, Spain. The day before the meeting, I worked with Doctor Leonor Cerdá Alberich and Doctor Blanca Martínez de las Heras from La Fe Hospital. Together, we made progress towards integrating my model with imaging and molecular biomarkers. We also received valuable input from Doctor Barbara Hero.
28/06/2019
The PRIMAGE consortium meeting (25/06 and 26/06) in Pisa, Italy was a success. In addition to presenting my prototype model of neuroblastoma, I met researchers from other work packages, including clinical researchers, computer engineers, software developers, image and data analysts, and other modellers. I look forward to working with them more closely after the productive exchange of ideas.
05/06/2019
I would like to welcome Daniel Jordan and Jack Ashurst aboard. Daniel will be supervised by me during the Insigneo Summer Research Programme; he will study the role of MYCN in neuroblastoma. Jack will carry out his undergraduate thesis research (computer science) under my and Doctor Dawn Walker's supervision; his project is about neural crest development, specifically how it is controlled and impaired intracellularly.
17/04/2019
Today, I was awarded a grant for the Insigneo Summer Research Programme. An undergraduate student at the University of Sheffield will be funded by this grant and supervised by me from May/June. We will study the significance of MYCN expression in neuroblastoma.
04/02/2019
I returned to England on Friday. Today, I started a new project at the University of Sheffield. PRIMAGE is a 10 million–euro Horizon 2020 project involving 16 institutions from eight European countries. The aim is to build a cloud-based decision-making platform for the clinical management of malignant solid tumours, specifically predictive tools for diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and follow-up, including novel imaging biomarkers, in silico tumour growth simulation methods, advanced visualisation techniques, and machine learning tools. My main task is to develop methods to simulate tumour progression in silico.
28/01/2019
I just had my last day at UNL. In the last two years, I had the pleasure of building the virtual immune system with this great team. I would like to thank Doctor Helikar, the group leader, for giving me this opportunity; my colleagues, for being supportive and teaching me new things. I will stay in touch to get my work published and contribute to the virtual immune system project in a consulting capacity.
Unfortunately, I cannot bring the two paintings in my flat with me. Here is the one I painted in August 2017: link.
Kenneth Y. Wertheim.
Zora and Maya, oil on canvas, 2017.
04/01/2019
My paper about the potential of VEGFC to form Turing patterns in the zebrafish embryo is now online: link.
11/11/2018
Today, I completed Udacity's Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree programme. The capstone project report and code can be found here: link.
08/08/2018
Yesterday, I served on an evaluation panel for the Institute for International Teaching Assistants. I rated the teaching, language, and comprehension skills of prospective teaching assistants.
27/07/2018
The ISMB organisers have uploaded a video of my talk to YouTube (link). It can also be found in the section entitled 'Works'.
25/07/2018
I won the U1600 section of this year's Cornhusker State Games. I finished the tournament with 2.5 out of 5 points. My very first trophy in chess!
12/07/2018
I returned from the ISMB conference yesterday. The slides for my talk and my poster can be found in the section entitled 'Works'.
02/06/2018
I have been approved for a travel fellowship award for this year's ISMB conference. The selection process was merit-based.
12/05/2018
I have been selected to give a talk and a poster presentation about the virtual immune system project at the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference this year. The conference will be held in Chicago, Illinois. My talk is scheduled on 07/07/2018.
29/03/2018
Early this month, I reviewed a journal article for the Journal of Applied Physiology. It was my first peer review assignment.
09/02/2018
I am reviewing around 30 research project proposals for this year's UCARE programme. Some of the biomedical engineering projects are very exciting.
15/01/2018
In the acknowledgements of my PhD thesis, I describe my students at Columbia as `a pleasure to teach'. I would like to take this statement back because it is condescending. The students paid for my services and were not obliged to please me. Although no one has raised any objections, I have my own standards to maintain. Unlike some school teachers, I do not need to gain self-esteem by patronising my clients.
01/01/2018
I marked the beginning of the year by finishing a painting titled My Dearest Rose: link.
Kenneth Y. Wertheim.
My Dearest Rose, oil on canvas, 2018.
08/12/2017
Today, I finished expanding a Boolean network model of CD4+ T cells. It was originally developed by a colleague at UNL. The expanded model connects signal transduction to metabolism.