On Wednesday 3rd July, 2024, the QUOD team had a stand at the Kidney Research UK (KRUK) industry day, which was held in Leeds. The day was a huge success and we were joined by researchers, healthcare professionals, and patients of the life science industry to highlight the importance of collaboration to meet the growing challenges kidney disease.
We are grateful to KRUK for bringing everyone together and for the chance to attend and connect with many people to overcome the challenges of kidney disease.
In July 2024, QUOD teamed up with the Transplant Research Group at the University of Oxford to welcome students visiting as part of the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences Work Experience Programme. This annual programme offers school students aged ≥16 years a unique opportunity to gain valuable insight into careers in science and medicine, including time in the laboratory, shadowing clinicians and research nurses, a careers talk, and a feedback session.
It was a privilege to host the students for two afternoons. During their time with us, they learned about how QUOD samples are collected from organ donors at the 61 participating hospitals across the UK and then shipped to the QUOD hub in Oxford, where they are then processed and stored in the biobank. The students learned about the importance of the Human Tissue Act 2004 and were shown a video explaining the journey of a QUOD sample, from obtaining consent from the donor families to sample collection and storage in the biobank, as well as the types of research QUOD supports. They were then given a tour of our laboratory, where they watched a demonstration of how the samples that come to the Oxford hub are processed for long-term storage and how some of the tissue biopsies are processed as formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded blocks and subsequently sectioned using a microtome to prepare slides that go on to be used for histological analysis. The students also spent time with Dr Letizia Lo Faro from the Transplant Research Group, who uses QUOD samples in her research. They were given the opportunity to look at slides containing samples from different tissues (such as kidney, heart, and liver) under the microscope, see the types of equipment used for organ perfusion experiments, and gain hands-on experience practising their pipetting skills.
We wish the students every success for the future, whatever they go on to do, and hope that this experience has inspired them.
On the weekend of 14–15 September, Oxford opened its doors to allow access to many places not usually open to the public for the annual Oxford Open Doors event across the city. QUOD was delighted to get involved in the event on Saturday 14th September at the Old Road Campus Research Building, University of Oxford, which showcased various aspects of the research carried out within the Medical Sciences Division at the University.
Over the course of the afternoon, the QUOD team welcomed many people of all ages and invited them to our stand to learn about how the national QUOD team collects samples from organ donors across the UK using the QUOD boxes, which are then processed at the regional QUOD centres and shipped back to the Oxford hub for long-term storage in the biobank and supplied to researchers across the world. Our visitors enjoyed learning about the function and position of the different organs in the body and they enthusiastically engaged with a range of hands-on activities, including removing and replacing the organs from Paul, our life-sized, 3D, interactive torso, and took biopsies from apples then carefully placed the biopsies into QUOD collection tubes using forceps (just as the surgeon would do during the organ retrieval operation). There was also the opportunity to have a look at some of the manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals from studies that used QUOD samples, highlighting the impact of the QUOD biobank on research into transplantation as well as other areas. We even had a tombola and everyone went off with a QUOD-related prize – the chocolates and pens were very popular!
It was fantastic to meet everyone and we were very impressed by how knowledgeable and keen to learn the children were. We hope that the visitors to the Old Road Campus Research Building enjoyed meeting the team and learning about the research that QUOD supports. We are grateful to Louise King, Hannah Mackie, and Medical Sciences Division team, who organised this hugely successful event.
In September, QUOD travelled to Istanbul, Turkey, to attend The Transplantation Society 2024 (TTS2024) Congress. This was the first time that QUOD had participated at the biennial event, which enabled us to connect with a huge number of transplant professionals from across the world. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with QUOD colleagues as well as researchers who had used QUOD previously and were attending the congress. We had a lot of visitors and interest in our exhibition stand and we were able to promote the bioresource to a wide audience.
The TTS2024 programme was jam packed, with a wealth of novel research and new ideas being presented, sparking stimulating discussions. We were excited to see research using QUOD samples featured in an e-poster from Hussain Abbas. QUOD supplied samples from >1,000 liver donors to this study, which revealed differences between DBD and DCD donors and highlighted the under-utilisation of DCD livers as well as preretrieval biochemical and metabolic derangements that contribute to the risk factors associated with DCD livers.
TTS2024 was a huge success and opened up the opportunity to connect and showcase QUOD internationally.
