The AVE carrying Marta Shahbazi Alonso was travelling from Madrid to Seville when it collided near Urda, Toledo, with an Iryo train reportedly stopped on the same track. Spanish media reported that the 41-year-old scientist from León was among the passengers whose whereabouts remained unknown. Reports published on October 30, two days after the collision, said she was travelling in carriage 8.
Her brother, physicist Carlos Shahbazi, confirmed her disappearance to the newspaper. When he spoke, the family had received no information from authorities since her parents reported her missing and provided DNA samples. He said they were holding on to a last hope, though he acknowledged the chances were very low. Reports quoted him saying the family knew nothing about her and was clinging to its final hope.
Another scientist aboard the AVE, 31-year-old Tamara González Costa, was also reported missing. The Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares identified her as a passenger on the train, while Spanish coverage placed her in carriage 8, seat 12B. Both scientists were reportedly travelling to a scientific event in Huelva. Shahbazi was expected to receive recognition there from the Sociedad Española de Biología del Desarrollo. El Mundo reported that 67 passengers remained unaccounted for after five people were found alive. An earlier report covered the wider search for passengers after the collision.
Born in León, Shahbazi leads a research group at Cambridge’s Laboratorio de Biología Molecular. Her team studied human embryos in the laboratory for 13 days, twice the previous record. That work opened a window onto an early stage of development that had been difficult to observe. Her research examines how embryos organize during early development and how cells begin to take on distinct roles. It also focuses on implantation.
She took charge of her own group in Cambridge in 2020. Its research examines how cells in an early embryo begin to take on different roles and focuses on implantation, a stage at which about 30% of human pregnancies fail. The work uses surplus embryos donated by fertility clinics for research. The international consensus described in her 2019 interview allowed research up to 14 days after fertilisation.
