OrganOx wins prestigious award for helping save thousands of lives
The technology helped over 6,000 transplants, across four continents and twelve countries
A team of engineers at the University of Oxford has won “the equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize” after creating a new technology which has helped save thousands of lives.
The Royal Academy of Engineering announced that OrganOx won the £50,000 MacRobert Award, which is the longest running and most prestigious prize for UK engineering innovation.
Professor Constantin Coussios, Co-founder of OrganOx, says it’s almost the “equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize in engineering”.
He and his team won the award for their life-saving technology that is supporting more organ transplants and helping to cut waiting lists.
The complex device maintains livers and kidneys in a functioning state outside the body for at least twice as long as conventional cold preservation techniques.
Operating at body temperature (37C), the devices replicate the conditions of an organ within the body.
This allows fully automated preservation of an organ for periods of up to 24 hours clinically and several days pre-clinically.
Professor Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci, said: “Biology teaches engineers a lesson in humility. The liver and kidney represent two of the most non-linear and multivariate systems to attempt to control and emulate but the reward for eventually doing so successfully after two decades of effort is immense.
“Each quality-assured organ that has functioned effectively in our devices outside the body saves the life of a patient, over 6,000 to date, and gives that patient and their loved ones the gift of time and a quality of life previously thought irreclaimable.
“This achievement and the many more to come would not have been possible without the academic, technological and translational excellence of the UK innovation ecosystem.”
The technology enabled over 6,000 transplants across four continents and twelve countries.
Medical facilities adopting the technology have reported up to a 30% net increase in transplants, with waiting times and waiting list mortality cut by more than half.
Chair of the MacRobert Award judging panel, Dr Alison Vincent CBE FREng, said: “OrganOx is a worthy winner of the MacRobert Award, which has been celebrating the strength, creativity and global impact of British engineering for more than half a century.
“OrganOx has developed a truly game-changing and life-saving innovation that is at the forefront of efforts to increase the number of donor organs available for transplantation.”