Fadi Issa 

Fadi is Professor of Translational Immunology and leads the Translational Research Immunology Group (TRIG), University of Oxford. His work is focused on developing cell therapies for use in transplantation to reduce reliance on conventional immunosuppression.  He is Executive Editor of Transplantation, a Steering Committee member of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies, and immediate past Chair of the Transplantation Society’s Basic and Translational Science Committee.

Constantin Coussios is the Director of the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering.  He received his BS, MEng and PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, was a tutorial fellow in engineering at Magdalen between 2004 and 2010 and was elected to the first statutory chair in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford in 2011, with special responsibility for drug delivery and therapeutic devices.

Together with Professor Peter Friend he was founder of the Oxford University spin-out OrganOx Ltd., which has developed a novel normothermic perfusion device for improved liver and kidney preservation prior to transplantation through to first-in-man trials and first sales.  In 2014, he co-founded OxSonics Ltd., which is developing a new generation of ultrasound-based medical devices for drug delivery and minimally invasive surgery,  and in 2016 he co-founded OrthoSon Ltd,  which is developing minimally invasive replacement of the intervertebral disc. In 2017, he received the Silver Medal of the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering for his contributions to organ preservation and ultrasound-enhanced drug delivery. In 2019, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Rebecca Cullen joined the NHS in 2015 via the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme, having completed a BSc in Microbiology from the University of Leicester. She has worked in numerous NHS Trusts, including a brief stint in the NHS European Office and is now the Operational Services Manager for Maternity Services at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH).

Outside of her primary role she also sits on the Council of Governors for the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

In her previous role she was the Service Manager for the Renal and Transplant department at OUH, where she gained a MSc in Healthcare Leadership from the University of Birmingham and is a qualified Independent Assessor for the Human Tissue Authority.

Professor Friend studied medicine at Cambridge University and St Thomas’s Hospital and, after qualifying, trained as a surgeon in London and Cambridge before undertaking a period of research at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Sir Roy Calne.

In 1988 he was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor of Surgery at Indiana University Medical Center, USA, where he was responsible for initiating a programme of liver transplantation.  He returned to the UK in 1989 to take up the post of University Lecturer (Honorary Consultant) in the University Department of Surgery at Cambridge. He was the Clinical Director of the Cambridge Transplant Unit and also a Fellow and Director of Studies in Medicine at Magdalene College, Cambridge. 

In 1999 he was appointed to the post of Professor of Transplantation at the University of Oxford and Consultant Transplant and Hepatobiliary Surgeon at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.  At that time he was also appointed Director of the Oxford Transplant Centre. 

Over the last two decades, the numbers and types of transplants carried out in Oxford have increased.  The Unit now undertakes, kidney, kidney and pancreas, pancreas alone, islet and intestinal transplants.  Oxford is the largest (in terms of numbers of transplants carried out each year) pancreas transplant unit in Europe.    

Peter's research interests lie primarily in novel applications of normothermic organ perfusion, ranging from organ preservation and repair prior to transplantation to its use for extracorporeal support in acute liver failure. He has published over 300 papers relating to clinical transplantation, immunosuppression, monoclonal antibodies, xenotransplantation, isolated organ perfusion, as well as various aspects of general surgery.

Peter is one of two academic founders of OrganOx and currently its Chief Medical Officer, with responsibilities that include the pre-clinical and clinical studies of OrganOx's normothermic organ perfusion technology.

Consultant Transplant Nephrologist

Phil Mason qualified from Guy's Hospital in 1979 and after junior doctor posts mainly in London, he trained in nephrology and transplantation at Hammersmith Hospital. He undertook immunology research leading to a PhD following which he was appointed Clinical Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in 1994.  He moved to Oxford in 1995.

He has been the clinical lead for nephrology since 2009 and has a major interest in transplantation.  He established the antibody incompatible transplant programme in Oxford and is an investigator on several nephrology and transplant studies.  He sits on various national council related bodies including the NHSBT Kidney Advisory Group and the Living Donor Kidney Transplant 2020 Strategy Implementation Group. 

Kazbi Soonawalla is a Senior Research Fellow at the Said Business School and a Tutorial Fellow in Management at Keble College, University of Oxford.  Her research and teaching interests are financial and management accounting with a focus on banks and financial institutions, and budgeting practices.  Before coming to Oxford, Kazbi taught at the London School of Economics for over ten years.  She has a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Boston University, and MS (Statistics), MA (Economics) and PhD (Business) from Stanford University.