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Our Lunchtime Seminars

Dates for 2025-2026

Our Lunchtime Seminars, bring together invited external speakers and members of our community to share their research and stimulate discussion. They are a great way to make connections and to discover new areas of interdisciplinary biosciences research. 

Friday 12 December 2025,  12-1.30 pm Collingwood Penthouse B Jose Munoz

Monday 23rd February 2026 Applied Math seminar joint with BSI and WRI Dr Joshua Bull from Oxford (Mathematics and the CRUK Cancer Centre) (register here: February 23rd 2026 - BSI Lunchtime Seminar – Fill in form) Mountjoy Centre Event Space 

Friday 27 March 2026, 12-1.30 pm, Mountjoy Centre Event Space (Mountjoy Event Space - Find out more here). Register here: March 27 2026 - BSI Lunchtime Seminar  – Fill in form

Dr Adam Bentham

Monday 20 April 2026,  12-1.30 pm, Mountjoy Centre Event Space  Dr Sarah Heaps  & Professor Yujiang Wang Register and find out more here: BSI Joint Experimental-Theoretical talk 20 April 2026

Monday 22 June 2026,  12-1.30 pm, Mountjoy Centre Event Space 

  • External Visitor Fund

    Find out more about our scheme to support bringing external colleagues to Durham for collaboration building activities.
    Student helping themselves to salad at a buffet

  • Sign up to our Mailing List

    Sign up to our mailing list to recieve twice-monthly emails about events and funding opportunities, as well as news from our community.
    Students being delivered a seminar in the business school

External Visitor Fund

Find out more about our scheme to support bringing external colleagues to Durham for collaboration building activities.
Student helping themselves to salad at a buffet

Sign up to our Mailing List

Sign up to our mailing list to recieve twice-monthly emails about events and funding opportunities, as well as news from our community.
Students being delivered a seminar in the business school
Full BSI Calendar of Events

Our Next Seminar 

Applied Math Seminar - jointly held with BSI and WRI 

Dr Joshua Bull (Oxford and the CRUK Cancer Centre)

23 February 2026

 

MuSpAn: a mathematical toolbox for multiscale spatial analysis in biology

This is the first event in the newly redeveloped Mountjoy Centre - please watch the news pages for more information: BSI Move into new Hub Space.  

12-1 pm   Lunch: Mountjoy Centre - Event Space 

1-2 pm     Seminar: Mountjoy Centre - Event Space 

Attendees are welcome to attend for all or part of the session. Please register using the link below for catering purposes. 

February 23rd 2026 - BSI Lunchtime Seminar – Fill in form

 

Abstract

Biological imaging has recently been transformed by advances in spatial proteomics and transcriptomics platforms, which produce complex maps of cell types across whole tissue samples at a single cell scale. The images they generate reveal organisation at multiple scales, from subcellular structure to tissue‑level ecosystems. However, while these technologies have advanced rapidly, adoption of the analytical methods needed to interpret the resulting data have not kept pace, leading to a fragmented landscape of tools and limited guidance on how to choose appropriate quantitative approaches.
This talk introduces MuSpAn (https://docs.muspan.co.uk), a multiscale spatial analysis toolbox designed to make rigorous mathematical approaches accessible to researchers across the biological sciences. The framework combines methods from spatial statistics, topology, graph theory, geometry, and probability into a single package, enabling users to build tailored analysis workflows or perform unbiased exploration of spatial datasets.
This seminar will outline new statistical methods developed specifically to address key problems in spatial biology, with applications in cancer, infectious disease, and developmental systems. The aim is to provide an overview of how mathematical tools can support clearer and more reproducible analysis of complex biological data, accessible to audiences from any discipline.