2025 – Origins of Eukaryotic Excitability meeting (Heidelberg Guest professorship)
Four years on from our paper with the same name, Gáspár and I reunited at the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg for a stimulating Discussion workshop on the origins of eukaryotes and their extraordinary excitable behaviours. We covered diverse topics from paleobiology, phylogenetics, cell learning to biophysics.
Four lab members (Hannah, Sam, Julien and James) also attended and presented their exciting (sorry) research!
Thanks to the University of Heidelberg’s Expanding Internationality programme for funding this meeting and my extended stay in Heidelberg.
2025 – ARIA Summit
Last year, we were awarded a grant from ARIA – the UK’s new Advanced Research and Invention Agency, whose ambition is to fund and unlock new scientific and technological breakthroughs.
At the first ever ARIA Summit recently, Kirsty talked about her project and shared the stage with other fellow ARIA Creators. The intense sense of optimism in the room for the future of UK R&D was palpable!
2025 – EMBL Symposium: Theory and Concepts in Biology
The team is back for EMBL TCB Edition II! This time the original organising team (Alexander Aulehla, Jordi Garcia Ojalvo, and I) were joined by Christina Hueschen and Sriram Ramaswamy, and >120 other participants for another edition of this unique meeting.
We tasked the participants with the small matter of coming up with the next ‘Hilbert problems’ in biology… what did we find out?
2024 – Ernst Stungmann Forum on “Navigation Research: Mapping the Future”
Kirsty attended a discussion forum on navigation at the Ernst Strüngmann Institute in Frankfurt.
It was a unique experience participating in immersive discussions about navigation across species scales from cells, ants, birds, bats, rats, humans and even robots… (group 2 = miscellaneous organisms!). Michael made this cool video that perfectly captured the spirit of the occasion.
We have written up our findings in the form of a report, to be released soon!
2024 – Physics of Biological Cells: from molecules to populations
Five lab members attended the Physics of Biological Cells workshop in Edinburgh! Karen and Hannah presented talks on ‘comparative analysis of diatom gliding motility’ and ‘Bioelectric control of locomotor gaits in a walking single cell’.
2024 – Michael Sars Symposium Bergen
A fantastic visit to the Michael Sars centre in Bergen Norway culminated in the joint meeting of the Nordic Developmental Biology Societies…
Some truly `exotic’ model organisms on display, from sea squirts, worms, to comb jellies!
2024 – Great news, our lab has been awarded a new HFSP grant (joint with Thomas Kiørboe and Alastair Simpson)!
Watch this space for exciting discoveries about assorted heterotrophic flagellates and
predictions about the likely functionally identity of LECA!
2024 – LSI Biofilaments Workshop: Structure, Dynamics and Function
United by their love of biological filaments, Kirsty and Bertram got together and organised the first ever UK Biofilaments meeting, sponsored by a UK Physics of Life Network grant.
This unique interdisciplinary meeting brought together biologists, physicists and mathematicians researching biological filaments to foster new collaborations and formulate new solutions to grand challenges in the field.
Congratulations to Rebecca who bagged one of the best poster prizes for her work entitled: Metachronal waves in the ciliary band of Platynereis dumerilii larvae.
2024 – EMBL Symposium: Biological Oscillators
Well done to PhD students Alexander and Rebecca who got to present their work at this exciting meeting in Heidelberg!
2023 – EMBL Symposium: Theory and Concepts in Biology
This summer, Alexander Aulehla, Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo, Rob Phillips and Kirsty Wan organised an EMBL symposium highlighting the role of theory in biology, and the impact that biology can have on theory.
It was a highly enjoyable and provocative event, and we will be returning in 2025 (6-9th May)- watch this space for updates!
2023 – Visiting Guest Professor TU Dresden
Between 2022-2023, Kirsty visited B-CUBE and Physics of Life as a guest professor, supported by an Eleonore Trefftz award.
Not only is Dresden a unique place to do science, it also offers some spectacular scenery! We are very excited about the new collaborations that we have developed during these visits.
2022 – Sampling in Roscoff, France (with Jékely lab members)
Sometimes you have to work hard and travel far for your samples. We joined forces with the Jékely lab for a short visit to the famous Roscoff marine station.
Many beautiful plankton were identified, and many cilia imaged! More will be revealed soon…
2022 – Microscale Ocean Biophysics 6.0, Mallorca
Mallorca was the ideal location for a conference about microbial biophysics. After several years of the pandemic we felt very much inspired by the sea, the sun, and the exciting science.
Well done also to team members Karen and Rebecca who gave great talks at the meeting (about diatoms and corals respectively)!
2022 – MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship award for Karen
Congratulations to Karen who received an MSCA Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship* to study the motility of diatoms, we are delighted to host your project!
(*funded under an UKRI- EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship guarantee)
2021 – Dario’s paper out in PRL
Our paper on Control of helical navigation by three-dimensional flagellar beating is out in PRL as an Editors’ suggestion! See accompanying synopsis.
2021 – Biochemical Society Early Career Award
Kirsty received the 2021 Early Career research award from the UK Biochemical Society, and presented her award lecture at the online symposium Dynamic Cell IV conference.
2020 – Great news, our lab has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant!
As highlighted on the ERC website, this project (nicknamed EvoMotion) will investigate the sensory and motor pathways used by unicellular organisms in order to understand how they respond dynamically to their environment.
2019 – Royal Society Discussion Meeting: On the Unity and Diversity of Cilia
After a couple of years of planning (and anticipation), the interdisciplinary cilia meeting that Kirsty and Gáspár envisaged was brought to life at Chicheley Hall. This event was sponsored by a Royal Society Theo Murphy grant, and resulted in the publication of a special issue in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B the following year.
(Those present will of course remember the peacocks prancing around the grounds at night…)
2018 – Great news, our lab has been awarded a Springboard Grant!
We are delighted to receive funding for a project entitled: “Genesis and control of ciliary beating: a new look at an ancient structure’. Here, we use the microalga Chlamydomonas as a model system for studying ciliary dynamics.
2018 – Marine Biological Laboratory Physiology Course
Kirsty spent a memorable summer at the MBL in Woods Hole, where she participated in the 125th edition of the Physiology Course, met some truly remarkable people, and conducted what can only be described as ‘night science’. (Thank you, class of 2018!)
Two purely curiosity-driven projects emerged from the course, and later brought to publication: 1) ciliary membranellar band regeneration in Stentor 2) macroscopic robophysical modelling of flagellates.
Kirsty Y. Wan 