Professor Sue Francis, Professor of Physics, University of Nottingham 

Professor David Long, Professor in Paediatric Nephrology, University College London 

Dr Edward Sharples, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Helen Weavers, Associate Professor in Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Bristol 

Dr Katie Mylonas, Kidney Research UK (KRUK) Senior Research Fellow (with the Thompson Family Charitable Trust) and Principal Investigator, University of Edinburgh 

Professor Valeria Mas, Professor of Surgery, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, and a cellular and molecular transplant immunologist, University of Maryland, USA 

Professor Rikke Norregaard, Professor of Translational Nephrology, University of Aarhus, Denmark 

Dr Maria Kaisar is an Associate Professor of Transplantation Science at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences (NDS), University of Oxford, and Scientific Programme Lead for Organ Donation and Transplantation at NHS Blood and Transplant. She holds the roles of National Scientific Coordinator and Executive of the Quality in Organ Donation project. Her scientific focus is on organ donation and transplantation with a translational purpose in improving donor organ assessment and transplant outcomes.

Following completion of her DPhil in Transplantation Science at NDS, she went on to lead her multidisciplinary team as a Principal Investigator. By integrating advanced multi-omics technologies with big data analytics and biostatistics Maria’s research team focuses on identifying and validating biomarkers that more accurately reflect donor organ quality, viability, and resilience. By combining molecular profiling, imaging, and computational approaches, her group aims to uncover the mechanisms of organ injury and the biological resilience of cells and tissues, seeking to develop refined tools of donor organ assessment so more organs are transplanted that last for longer in transplant recipients.

Research highlights

Maria is the Principal Investigator of the ADMIRE project, funded by the Stoneygate Trust and Garfield Weston Foundation, and supported by Kidney Research UK. ADMIRE aims to develop non-invasive markers that can be measured during donor management to assess donor kidneys prior to transplantation by integrating donor plasma protein profiles and clinical variable using machine learning methodologies.

As Chief Investigator, Maria leads a collaborative team across Oxford, Nottingham, and UCL to test the feasibility of integrating ex vivo and post-transplant MRI into routine clinical pathways. This has led to the first-in-human clinical study of ex vivo MRI scanning of donor kidneys prior to transplantation, followed by a three-month MRI scan of recipients post-transplant, combining MRI and 3D histology

Her work has opened new scientific directions by characterising the protein degradome in donor kidneys — the landscape of protein degradation driven by dysregulated enzymatic activity during biological dysregulation during deceased donation.

Leadership positions

Co-Chair of Research Committee, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford (2024 – present)

Chair of Basic Science Committee at European Society of Organ Transplantation (2023-2025)

Councillor of Transplant Science at the British Transplant Society (2022- 2025)