Departures of note

Dr Marta Shahbazi was a developmental biologist and group leader in the Cell Biology Division of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. She was also an affiliate associate professor at the University of Cambridge and a principal investigator at its Stem Cell Institute.

Her research focused on the early stages of human embryo development. She was due to receive a scientific excellence prize from the Spanish Society of Developmental Biology at a conference that began on the day of the crash, and she was travelling to collect the prize when she was killed.

Colleagues remembered her as an inspiring, talented and passionate scientist and a much-admired role model for 'mother scientists', a term she used to describe herself after writing about balancing her family and career.