Founded in 1982
Celebrating over 35 years of science
Over 330 publications to date
Multi-disciplinary international team
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© TRIG image
Our group is a dynamic, multi-disciplinary international team of around 12 scientists,clinician scientists and students. We are dedicated to translating our research from the lab into the clinic by finding new ways to diagnose and treat patients, with the aim of optimising patient care, and prolonging the life of a donated organ.
With this in mind, we are investigating how :
- to increase the selectivity of immunosuppression such that only the destructive responses the immune system makes against the transplant are suppressed
- to predict when the rejection is going to happen more reliably to enable anti-rejection treatment to be started before the transplant has actually been damaged by the immune response
- we may be able to reduce immunosuppression in renal transplant recipients with the use of regulatory T cells (Treg) in a pioneering clinical trial of cellular therapy in renal transplantation (The TWO Study)
Advances in each of these areas would allow immunosuppressive drug therapy to be tailored to the specific needs of the individual transplant recipient. In other words, the development of personalised or precision medicine for each individual transplant patient.
Our work is supported with substantial funding from the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council, and the European Union. We also receive funding from RESTORE (Burn and Wound Research), OHSRC (Oxfordshire Health Research Services Committee), the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the University of Oxford Medical Research Fund - we are grateful to all our funders for allowing us to continue with our research.
Our team
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Fadi Issa
Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery
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Joanna Hester
University Research Lecturer
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Monica Dolton
Project Manager
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Alaa Alzhrani
DPhil student
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Sushma Shankar
NIHR Clinical Lecturer in General Surgery & Transplantation
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Hisashi Hashimoto
DPhil student
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Oliver McCallion
DPhil candidate and Clinical Research Fellow
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Matthew Brook
NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer
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Matthew Bottomley
Clinical Lecturer in Renal Medicine
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Amy Cross
Postdoctoral Scientist
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Helen Stark
DPhil student and Clinical Research Fellow in Plastic Surgery
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Sabrina Wright
MSc (Res) Student
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Marie Sion
DPhil student
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George Adigbli
DPhil student
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Kathryn Wood
Emeritus Professor of Immunology
Congratulations to ...
31 July 2020
Two prestigious Fellowships awarded to TRIG members
Many congratulations to Helen Stark who has been awarded a Royal College of Surgeons of England Fellowship and to Ollie (Oliver) McCallion who has been awarded an MRC Fellowship. Helen and Ollie are both undertaking a DPhil in TRIG.
3rd July 2020
Dr Fadi Issa, who has been made an Associate Professor (Academic Plastic Surgery and Transplantation) and Dr Joanna Hester, who has been awarded a University Research Lecturership (Transplant Immunology) in the recent recognition exercise. Many congratulations to them both on their achievements.
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THE ONE STUDY TEAM :
The results of the ONE Study have been published in a paper in the Lancet as follows:
Sawitzski, Birgit et al: Regulatory cell therapy in kidney Transplantation (The ONE Study): A harmonised design and analysis of seven non-randomised, single-arm, phase 1/2A trials. Lancet 2020 May 23;395(10237):1627-1639.
Speaking about the achievement, Professor Kathryn Wood said:
"This is the culmination of in depth research in the TRIG laboratory investigating how specialised cells known as regulatory T cells, that form part of everyone’s immune system can be used as a cell therapy to help the treatment of patients who need a life saving transplant
An outstanding example of multidisciplinary collaboration within Oxford, as well as nationally and internationally".
RESTORE
TRIG are pleased to announce that we are part of the RESTORE community which has just been awarded with funding for the prepatory phase.
RESTORE is a Large scale Research Initiative, funded by the EU. It is designed to be a “place” where medicine, basic research, technology development and engineering meet, communicate and work together: to tackle grand interdisciplinary science and technology challenges and to find novel solutions.
To find out more about the initiative please go to: https://www.restore-h2020.eu/home
TRIG takes part in the IF Oxford science festival
TRIG team members took part in the IF Oxford science and ideas festival recently, with an interactive story called 'The heroes and villains in transplantation - Can you sort them out?' which showed how an upcoming clinical trial, called The TWO Study, will sort 'good' protective cells from 'bad' cells that cause transplant rejection and how this might help save lives.
Pictured above are: George Adigbli, Sabrina Wright, Dr Mathew Brook, Dr Joanna Hester and Cosmo Tullar.
Read the full story here: https://www.nds.ox.ac.uk/news/nds-at-if-oxford
Thinking of becoming an ACF? Want to know what it's like?
See David Fawkner-Corbett's profile and read about his research.
The Andrew Bushell Memorial Travel Fund Awards
Dr Andrew Bushell, a key member of the Wood Lab / TRIG passed away in December 2016 after a period of illness.
As a way to celebrate Andrew’s career and all of his contributions to the success of the group a travel fund has been set up to help provide travel bursaries for graduate students and early career researchers to attend meetings. Andrew was passionate about educating and training young scientists and was very proud of the achievements of all of the students and fellows that have been members of the Wood Lab/TRIG over the years.
If you would like to contribute to the fund please follow the link below.
www.campaign.ox.ac.uk/bushell-memorial-travel
If you would like any further information about the fund, please contact Monica Dolton: monica.dolton@nds.ox.ac.uk
We offer many congratulations to Rebeca Arroyo Hornero and Jessica Padley who are the first two recipients of the Andrew Bushell Memorial Travel Fund Awards.