Our spotlight interview for this issue of the QUOD newsletter features Dr Sarah Cross, QUOD’s National Operational Coordinator. Sarah is based at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford and her role is central to the running of QUOD. She has a finger in many pies as she oversees the day-to-day operations of QUOD, including the core team in Oxford, and manages the ethics and regulatory framework under which QUOD operates.
When asked what a typical day might look like, she replied that every day is so varied and packed, which she loves, and there is no such thing as a typical day really. Each week, she catches up with the QUOD team members and senior management team. She is the first point of contact for all researchers who wish to apply to use QUOD samples. Her role involves liaising with researchers at the initial phase of application process, then coordinating and tracking the application process from beginning to end, when the researchers have received their samples, and then completed their studies.
Sarah attends many meetings and conferences across the UK as well as worldwide and is actively involved in public engagement and outreach to showcase how the QUOD bioresource supports research. These fundamental events allow QUOD to connect with the transplant research community and Sarah relishes the opportunity to meet up with researchers and colleagues old and new. The calendar for 2025 is filling up quickly and there are many upcoming events in March, including the BTS NHSBT Joint Congress and the QUOD annual symposium, which will be held in Birmingham and Sarah is responsible for organizing.
Sarah has always worked within transplantation and her first venture into this field began around 25 years ago during her undergraduate degree at the University of Bristol. Her final year project in a renal laboratory sparked her interest in immunology as she investigated the effects of immunosuppressive drugs on the release of proteins known as cytokines from immune cells that are found in the blood. Her project supervisor was a nephrologist who was also interested in pancreatic islet transplantation and this rubbed off on her. In 2000, the Edmonton Protocol was published in the New England Journal of Medicine by a team of researchers at the University of Alberta, Canada. This was a landmark paper that reshaped the entire process of islet isolation and transplantation and transformed outcomes. Following this, interest in the UK took off and the UK Islet Transplantation Consortium was set up, including centres at Bristol and Oxford. Based in Bristol, Sarah began her PhD in 2002, which looked at the impact of immunosuppressive drugs on release of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its effects as a survival factor for pancreatic islets. This was an exciting time within the islet transplant world and Sarah relished the opportunities this brought, attending workshops, conferences and meetings worldwide, and she forged strong networks within the field.
Sarah’s PhD enabled her to gain invaluable experience isolating islets for research purposes, as well as involvement in setting up the clinical programme. She is proud of the work that came out of her PhD, which showed that the immunosuppressive drug sirolimus (also known as rapamycin, used in the Edmonton Protocol) reduced the release of VEGF from islets, impacting islet survival.
In 2006, the state-of-the-art Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation Human Islet Isolation Facility opened at the University of Oxford. This happened just as Sarah was finishing her PhD, during which she had got to know the Oxford team well. Timings aligned as they were looking for a deputy lab manager, and so began her 14-year career in the Islet Transplant Research Group at the University of Oxford, leading islet isolation for transplantation, alongside further research in improving the islet isolation process.
In 2020, a career change called as QUOD were recruiting a new National Operational Coordinator. Sarah was aware of QUOD as they were located just along the corridor from the islet isolation lab and the move felt like the perfect transition towards facilitating a broad range of research across multiple organs within the field of transplantation. Sarah’s enthusiasm for her role within QUOD is infectious and she describes the work she does as her passion and she cannot imagine a more rewarding job. What brings particular joy is seeing the research QUOD is able to support and the scope for future projects, with many already in the pipeline.
“What makes QUOD special is that it is unique.” Sarah describes it as a privilege to be part of an established national programme that is supported by a host of transplant centres across the UK and work with a “huge family of people”, who work together to obtain consent and collect samples to ensure the success of QUOD, and then see the impact of the research carried out using these samples. It really is a case of bench to bedside, as the samples obtained from the donors can be used to generate data that can directly positively impact future patients to improve outcomes. Sarah loves coming to work every day and praises the entire QUOD team, from the core team in Oxford to the extended team around the country, as fantastic to work with.
Sarah is very much looking forward to the QUOD symposium as it offers the chance to bring together the extended QUOD family, and she is excited about being able to showcase the latest research outcomes from the bioresource samples and announce the plans and developments for the next 5 years as the QUOD team has been working diligently on their strategy to expand. It will be a great pleasure to have in-depth discussions and obtain input from all the groups involved within QUOD and thank everyone for their involvement and proudly exhibit the impact their hard work is producing.
When not working, Sarah cherishes time with friends and family. Her eldest son is a county footballer and she spends time supporting him and the teams in which he plays. In the past, Sarah has run several marathons, including cake-a-thons (marathons that involve eating cake en route!), and, while juggling family life means marathons are on hold for now, Sarah is keen to get back into running and muster a QUOD running team together to take part in the Donor Run, which marks the start of the British Transplant Games (BTG), which will be held in Oxford this summer. We wish Sarah and the team all the best for this event and hope that the BTG are a huge success.