QUOD attended Kidney Research UK’s Driving Discoveries conference in Bristol this September. The event was an excellent opportunity to connect with the kidney community and hear about the research being done as well as talk to researchers about how we can support their work.
Sam Tingle, Surgeon and Researcher in Transplantation at Newcastle University, sent us his report on the event.
“It was a pleasure to attend Kidney Research UK’s Driving Discoveries conference this year, which brought together researchers, clinicians, and patients to share new advances across kidney disease. I was honoured to receive the Best Oral Presentation Award for our work on using contrast-enhanced ultrasound to assess kidney quality during ex situ normothermic machine perfusion. Our study explores whether this imaging method can provide real-time insights into organ viability before transplantation. Our hope is that this will enable the transplant of kidneys that would otherwise have been deemed too high risk. The full paper is available open access in Transplant International.
A major highlight of the meeting was the strong focus on patient involvement; a theme woven throughout the sessions and discussions. The event reflected how collaboration between scientists, clinicians, and patients continues to drive meaningful progress in kidney research.”
Our Spotlight Interview for this issue of the QUOD newsletter features Prof Sarah Richardson, who took time out to talk to us about her research and her role within QUOD.
Sarah Richardson is Professor of Cellular Biomedicine at the University of Exeter and Steve Morgan Foundation Grand Challenge Senior Research Fellow, specialising in the pathology of pancreatic diseases, particularly type 1 diabetes (T1D). Her career began studying Molecular Biology at Sheffield University before moving into cellular biology, and most of her profession has been spent studying why cells do or do not die under certain circumstances, as happens in T1D with the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells.
In 2006, she entered the field of T1D and pancreas tissue research under the mentorship of Prof Noel Morgan, working as a post-doc and collaborating with Prof Alan Foulis at Glasgow University, who compiled the world’s largest collection of pancreas samples from deceased patients at onset of T1D. When Prof Foulis retired, the biobank (now known as the Exeter Archival Diabetes Biobank) was transferred to Exeter, where Sarah has worked on it ever since. Her journey towards her full professorship, which she was awarded in 2024, has seen her achieve various fellowships. She feels incredibly lucky to be able to study the rare pancreas bioresource at Exeter and to dig into what happens in T1D in humans, as there are so few samples around the world. The scarcity of pancreas samples stems from the fact that pancreatic tissue can only be obtained after death. The pancreas cannot be safely biopsied due to its deep location in the abdomen and the risk of digestive enzymes leaking and causing complications.
Sarah believes it is just as important to study organs from individuals without disease as those with disease. She is conscious that “we can’t understand disease until we understand normal”; however, the shortage of pancreases available to researchers is a barrier to increasing our understanding of normal. Sarah and her team study pancreases from healthy donors as well as those with diabetes or other pancreatic diseases. Her research uses sophisticated staining and imaging platforms to interrogate pancreatic tissue and employs AI-assisted imaging technology to deeply examine tissue across the entire pancreas. Scanning tissue sections across the organ, they are able to perform detailed analyses of entire images that would not be possible using a microscope. These techniques enable analysis of changes in the architecture of the pancreatic tissue across the whole organ with disease, as well as during normal, healthy development or with ageing, allowing them to pick apart changes within the pancreas that may influence the clinical changes seen in patients.
Sarah is currently preparing a publication with Dr Christiana Lekka from her team, detailing the setup of a pancreas bioresource website that highlights the different collections of pancreases available globally, such as the Exeter Archival Diabetes Biobank in the UK, Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors with Diabetes (nPOD) in the USA, the Alberta Diabetes Institute IsletCore in Canada, as well as QUOD’s Whole Organ Pancreas Atlas. At present, there are approximately 2,250 pancreas samples with and without disease available to researchers. While this may sound like a lot, it is important to consider the different types of disease each may have, which limits the number of samples available for use for specific projects compared with the numbers that would be obtainable for other types of study, for example, genetic studies that examine hundreds of thousands of individuals. There are around 400–500 samples from pancreases with T1D available around the world, and, of these, there are fewer than 100 samples available from individuals close to onset of the disease, which are important for studying the underlying disease process. Given the rarity of these samples, Sarah feels incredibly lucky to have collaborated with so many people across the world to try to translate the work that is often done in lab-based studies, such as in cells or mouse models, into human-relevant tissue to confirm that targets or pathways that may play a role in disease are altered in human tissue.
In addition to her involvement with the Exeter Archival Diabetes Biobank, Sarah has collaborated with Prof James Shaw at Newcastle University to develop QUOD’s Whole Organ Pancreas Atlas. This unique resource allows researchers to access detailed macroscopic and microscopic images from across entire human pancreases. The QUOD-PANC pathology core takes routinely stained sections from 16 regions across the pancreas and her team put these through an AI-assisted image analysis pipeline to extract detailed tissue information. This enables research into how the endocrine part of the pancreas changes, and allows quantification of fibrosis and fat within the tissue, which can be linked to donor diseases and lifestyle factors. Feeding the information from the organs into the QUOD Atlas enables researchers to accurately select the donors they want to use and ensures the best samples are used for studies.
Sarah describes it is fabulous to have this type of initiative in the UK. What makes it unique and special is the way that they are collecting tissue from regions right across the pancreas in a systematic way that allows pancreases from different individuals of different ages and with different diseases to be studied. Importantly, being able to examine the whole pancreas could shed light on diseases that may occur within different areas of the organ. This enables researchers to build a picture of the architecture right the way through the entire organ in a way that few other biobanks can offer.
Since she began working in the field in 2006, Sarah has seen a huge shift in our understanding of T1D. In 2025, teplizumab, the world’s first immunotherapy for T1D that delays onset in people at risk of developing the disease, was approved. This is opening the floodgates for more immunotherapies to come through as previously insulin was the only treatment for the disease, meaning the condition was only treated after it had developed. The work she and her team are involved with has helped to cement the need to develop these immunotherapies and now focuses on guiding their next phase. Her research could also inform emerging stem-cell-derived islet therapies. Sarah describes this as an exciting time for T1D research, noting the UK’s leadership in general population screening strategies and disease understanding, and with bioresources such as the Exeter Archival Diabetes Biobank and QUOD really helping to drive a lot of these strategies. While current new therapies aim to delay T1D, in future, it may be possible to prevent the disease.
A typical week for Sarah is filled with a diverse mix of activities, including one-to-one meetings with team members, writing and data analysis, planning experiments, collaboration meetings with people across the world, team meetings, lectures, conferences, and travelling. Her passion and enthusiasm for the work she does is clearly visible. Team science is important to Sarah and she relishes working with as many people as she can, helping to facilitate their research, often working to put a small piece of the jigsaw into the puzzle, which could be the icing on the cake in terms of translating lab findings to human relevance. She feels “lucky and blessed to work with many collaborators around the world” and describes it as a real team effort!
When not busy working, Sarah loves walking her Australian Kelpie, Mick (pictured). She can often be found walking round her local woods dictating or thinking through talks or presentations, and brainstorming how to communicate latest findings in an accessible way. She enjoys being in the outdoors, where she can allow her creative juices to flow, and says some of her best thinking time happens during her outings with Mick. She isn’t entirely sure what Mick makes of it, but perhaps he is taking it all in!
The process of death invokes a complex set of events leading to profound hyper-inflammation. Systemic hyper-inflammation is a well-established cause of organ dysfunction, evidenced by the multi-organ failure observed in sepsis. It is reasonable to infer that in deceased organ donors, death-induced hyper-inflammation could have significant consequences for organs being offered for transplant.
A study being carried out by PhD student Annie Mae Goncalves-Bullock and led by Dr Nina Dempsey and Prof Ascanio Tridente at Manchester Metropolitan University and Mersey & West Lancashire NHS Trust, is currently using QUOD blood samples from kidney donors to investigate the importance of donor inflammation on outcomes in kidney recipients.
There is already significant interest regarding the effects of inflammation on pre-donation organ viability, and the consequences for short- and long-term outcomes. Deceased donor management guidelines recommend high-dose corticosteroid therapy is administered to the donor as soon as possible after donor identification and confirmation of death. Corticosteroids are used in this manner to blunt the inflammatory cascade, stabilise donor physiology and increase organ utilisation. However, there is concern that the non-specific nature of corticosteroids means that inflammation persists in deceased donors and there may be significant room for improvement of protocols. A deeper understanding of the drivers of the immunological events that follow death is essential for the development of future donor management protocols.
The group is therefore measuring a wide panel of cytokines at three time-points during the donor management period (DMP) and working to establish their independent association with short- and long-term kidney transplant outcomes. Given the wealth of donor and recipient data QUOD can provide alongside samples taken across the course of the DMP, the group feels that the QUOD biobank is the perfect resource for answering such questions. The group has chosen to focus on the outcomes of kidney transplants since the kidneys are usually the first organ to fail in response to the renal medullary hypoxia and systemic inflammation present in sepsis, prompting the hypothesis that this would also be the case following death.
The donor sampling time points being considered are termed DB1 (shortly after donor identification and consent, allowing for capture of baseline inflammation), DB3 (at time of preparation for kidney retrieval, allowing for capture of biological changes from clinical interventions) and DB4 (at the time of organ retrieval, reflecting the donor’s condition at the final stage of the DMP). The primary outcome is delayed graft function (DGF), defined as need for dialysis within 7 days post-transplant. Other outcomes being investigated are high serum creatinine concentrations and low estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) at 3- and 12-months post-transplant.
Despite standard DM protocols being used in these donors, the group is already seeing high levels of inflammatory markers persisting in these donor samples. It is hoped that the data from the study will support the growing evidence for revised immunomodulation protocols in deceased donors that are more targeted towards the initiators of the inflammatory cascade.
The PhD studentship is jointly funded by Manchester Metropolitan University and the NHSBT Organ Donation Fund.
Interim results from this study have recently been presented by the group at the British Transplantation Society conference, Brighton, March 2025 and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) conference, Munich, October 2025.
In July 2025, QUOD took part in the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences (NDS) work experience programme, partnering with the Transplant Research Group (TRG). Students were invited to spend an afternoon at the NHSBT Blood Donor Centre at the John Radcliffe Hospital, where QUOD and TRG share office and laboratory space, to learn about the biobank and the research QUOD supports.
The afternoon began with presentations introducing transplantation research and how QUOD supports this by supplying bespoke sample sets to scientists. Students watched our video following the journey of a QUOD box — from donor consent and sample collection to processing and storage in the biobank, according to regulations set out in the Human Tissue Act 2004. In the laboratory, Dr Jenny Collins, QUOD Research and Technical Assistant, demonstrated how tissue samples were processed for long-term storage as formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded blocks, and how sections of the tissue are cut using a microtome and slides are prepared to be used for histology.
Dr Letizia Lo Faro, Senior Scientist and Laboratory Manager, then guided the students in examining stained kidney tissue under the microscope. The students also gained hands-on experience using a protein assay to measure protein concentrations in solutions, similar to that used routinely to determine protein amount in tissue samples. They were particularly enthusiastic when observing ex vivo perfusion studies as they witnessed a liver perfusion experiment which was underway during their visit.
Later, the group met with Dr Richard Dumbill, Academic Clinical Lecturer and Surgeon, and Dr Lennart Hutzen, Medical Researcher, who shared their career journeys and offered advice on pursuing medicine and research.
It was a pleasure to welcome such engaged students and to showcase QUOD and the work the biobank supports. We hope the experience inspired them to explore careers in science and medicine, and we wish them every success for the future.
In August, members of the QUOD team attended the World Transplant Congress in San Francisco, to promote the biobank and introduce researchers from around the world to QUOD. Our exhibition stand drew strong interest from clinicians and scientists, and Marta Oliveira did an excellent job of sharing information about the bioresource as well as building great engagement with fellow exhibitors.
Professors Rutger Ploeg and Timothy Pruett chaired a scientific session titled “How to Optimise a More Global Research Infrastructure Redefining the Clinical and Scientific Landscape in the Era of AI”. This session highlighted the pivotal role of collaborative bioresources and databanks in advancing transplantation science in the age of AI and precision medicine, and QUOD was in the spotlight once more.
The session featured three leading biobank initiatives: iGeneTrain (Brendan Keating, USA), TransplantLines (Antonio Gomes, NL), as well as QUOD (Maria Kaisar, UK), each offering unique insights into the value of biobanking in enabling cutting edge research and innovation. The session included a dynamic panel discussion that explored strategic directions for global research infrastructures. Discussions with the audience highlighted the value of large biobanks to accelerate scientific progress in an era of AI and how working together has the potential to accelerate innovations for the benefit of patients.
Insight Molecular Diagnostics (iMDx) generously supported a networking reception following the research infrastructure session so that discussions could continue in a more informal setting. The event was extremely well attended by industry, representatives from a number of Organ Procurement Organisations (OPOs), the BMI Organ Bank team, clinicians and scientists, and charities such as 34 Lives. A number of collaborations were forged during the evening and feedback from the event was very positive. A shared theme emerged: the challenges of accessing biobank samples and data, and limited research funding opportunities, are common across the UK, Europe and the US. There was a universal feeling that international working was lacking and would be an excellent way to deliver research that could change practice and ultimately improve outcomes for patients.
This summer, the QUOD team was pleased to welcome Sam Richards as our new NHSBT/QUOD Statistician. Continuing our tradition of introducing new team members, we invited Sam to share a bit about himself so we could get to know him better.
What were you doing most recently before joining QUOD?
I have been working in the NHSBT Statistics Team for just over 2 years; the main areas I am involved with are kidney transplantation and organ donation.
What interested you about working with QUOD? As a statistician working in NHSBT, I am always motivated by opportunities to collect, analyse, and interpret data that make a real impact. I am also very passionate about organ donation and transplantation. Since QUOD facilitates research in this area to improve understanding and optimise transplant outcomes, I think it is a great opportunity to apply my statistical knowledge to support QUOD in providing high-quality data for world-class research.
What does your role involve? My main duty is to provide research scientists the clinical data with the variables appropriate to their research questions (such as donor, retrieval, and recipient follow-up data) to accompany samples from QUOD. I do this by extracting the requested data from the NHSBT database.
Lightning round time:
If you were stuck on an island what three things would you bring?
A water purification device
A Swiss army knife
My copy of ‘How to Stay Alive’ by Bare Grylls
Where’s your favourite place? Cinque Terre – great for walking, cliff jumping and Italian food!
Finally, what kinds of enquiries should people bring to you, and how best can they reach you?
Please feel free to get in touch with any queries regarding the data provided via my email: sam.richards@nhsbt.nhs.uk. If I do not have the answer, I will make sure to refer your query to one of the team members from QUOD or even NHSBT!
I had a fantastic time presenting our work on assessing donor kidney quality using magnetic resonance imaging at the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) Congress 2025 in London. I was honoured to be selected as a finalist in the Transplant International Best Poster Competition, which was hosted live in the ESOT Studio, a setting more reminiscent of a TV talk show than a traditional academic conference! Each finalist had just eight minutes to present, followed by a tough Q&A session from a panel of judges, and then, rather dramatically, each judge was interviewed live by a journalist about our work.
Although I didn’t take home the top prize, the response was incredibly encouraging. One judge described our research as “a potential game changer”, and I had some fascinating conversations with delegates afterwards who were clearly excited about the clinical potential.
The rest of the conference was equally stimulating. It was a refreshing shift from my usual MRI-focused meetings to something much more clinically oriented, offering a broader view of the transplant research landscape. It was also a pleasure to finally meet some of the QUOD team in person!
On Friday 3 October, colleagues, collaborators, and friends gathered to honour Professor Rutger Ploeg, founder of the QUOD Biobank, with a Festschrift (literally meaning “celebration writing”), a traditional academic celebration of a scholar’s life and work.
The event featured inspiring talks from esteemed speakers, including Prof Freddie Hamdy, Prof Peter Friend, Prof Maria Kaisar, Dr Cat Boffa, Dr Isabel Quiroga, Prof James Neuberger, Prof Derek Manas, Prof Henri Leuvenink, and Prof Michael Nicholson, who reflected on Prof Ploeg’s exceptional contributions to transplant research, clinical practice, and education.
Prof Ploeg delivered a heartfelt address, tracing his scientific and clinical journey and expressing gratitude to the colleagues and friends who shaped his remarkable career.
The celebration concluded with a dinner and speeches in Exeter College’s magnificent dining hall. The presence of Prof Ploeg’s family lent a particularly warm and personal touch to this memorable celebration.
Sincere thanks go to the Organising Committee — Prof James Hunter, Prof Maria Kaisar, Susan Patchett,andPhilippa Wren — for curating such a fitting and joyful tribute.
Karen Rockell, Patient Co-Director of the UK Organ Donation and Transplantation Research Network (UKODTRN), member of the QUOD Steering Committee, and liver recipient took part in multiple swimming events at both the British Transplant Games in Oxford, UK and the World Transplant Games in Dresden, Germany this summer. She sent us her report of the games.
“The British Transplant Games is a wonderful inclusive event where you meet others who know what it means to have a transplant. The comradery, support, and joy of the event is hard to describe, but being with people who truly understand your organ transplant journey with its ups and downs is hugely beneficial and can be very emotional too. It also gives participants the opportunity to meet donor family members who take such an active part in the running of the games and present the winners with their medals. Hearing their stories is humbling and we can express our gratitude to them even if we do not know our own donor family.
The event gives us an opportunity to promote organ donation by sharing our success stories but also highlighting the statistics on growing waiting lists and information about those who sadly do not survive the wait to receive their gift. Once you have attended a British Transplant Games you are hooked and look forward to the annual event, catching up with old friends and meeting new ones.
In is an honour to be selected to represent our country at the World Transplant Games. It is another opportunity to create awareness about organ donation locally and nationally as well as to meet others from across the world who have travelled a similar journey of transplantation. These games bring together athletes from across the world who demonstrate what thriving after transplant looks like. The sporting achievements are increasing year on year as transplant athletes show their prowess in their chosen sport. Many compete beyond the transplant games so the standards are rising exponentially – many world transplant records were broken in 2025 in Dresden!
I won four gold medals in the British Transplant Games and five in the Worlds Transplant Games.”
Huge congratulations to Karen on her incredible achievements and success in the swimming events at the British and World Transplant Games and thank you for sharing your story.
Oxford hosted the 2025 British Transplant Games from 31 July to 3 August, with events held across the historic city, including the track where Sir Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. The Opening Ceremony took place at Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill and home to the 12th Duke of Marlborough. It commenced with a spectacular parade from the Triumphal Arch, with the competitors lined up, holding banners displaying their affiliations and proudly wearing their team t-shirts. The parade kicked off as the Wantage brass band started up, with teams from across the UK and Ireland, adults and children alike, marching proudly in time to the music past cheering supporters as they made their way to the palace.
As they entered the Grand Court, the teams were announced by Oxford’s Susie Dent, lexicographer and etymologist. A total of 1,045 athletes, including the youngest at just two years old, filled the courtyard. A huge cheer went up for the Donor Family Network, who were the final team to enter and very much at the heart of the Games. There was a sense of respectful recognition for lost loved ones and sincere gratitude for the generous gifts received by the participants. When all were amassed, true to form, Susie shared two words of the day: “confelicity”, to take joy in the happiness of others, and “respair”, to have fresh hope and recovery following a period of despair; her carefully selected words aptly captured the sentiment of the Games.
Dr Paul Harden, Chair of the British Transplant Games and Transplant Active and Consultant Nephrologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, officially opened the Games, welcoming everyone and thanking all involved. He highlighted the generous gift of life given by the donors and their families and the Games’ role in promoting and celebrating active lives post-transplantation. He proudly noted that this year’s event was the largest since 1978 when the games began, with the host city, Oxford, fielding its biggest team to date.
Musician Adam Issacs, a transplant recipient and former The Voice UK contestant, then took to the stage. He shared his story and performed some of his own songs, launching the evening’s music and dancing that closed the ceremony on a high note.
On Saturday 2 August, Blenheim hosted the annual Donor Run, raising awareness of the NHS Organ Donor Register, the benefits of organ transplantation, and the Anthony Nolan Register, while honouring donors and their families. More than 2,000 runners took part in a huge range of outfits, from tutus and wigs to t-shirts bearing heartfelt tributes to cherished loved ones. QUOD’s Jenny Collins and her nine-year-old son participated, both wearing QUOD t-shirts (pictured). They were cheered on by fellow runners during the race, especially her son, who got a lot of encouragement and high fives. The runners received medals at the finish line, which was awash with colour and joyful cheers of support. The 2025 Donor Run, with its huge turnout and magnificent venue, was a huge success and it was a privilege to be part of such an uplifting tribute to organ donors and their families.
