Started in 1982
Celebrating over 35 years of science
Over 330 publications to date
Multi-disciplinary international team
© 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
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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 Kidney Research UK, 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
Clinician Scientist
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Joanna Hester
Senior Research Fellow
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Monica Dolton
Project Manager
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Rebeca Arroyo Hornero
DPhil student
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George Adigbli
DPhil student
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Kento Kawai
DPhil student
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Alaa Alzhrani
DPhil student
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Hisashi Hashimoto
DPhil student
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Kathryn Wood
Emeritus Professor of Immunology
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Oliver McCallion
Academic Clinical Fellow in Paediatric Surgery
Congratulations to ...
Dr Fadi Issa who has been chosen as the Winning Recipient in Nanostring's GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler Grant Program, from over 100 entries worldwide.
Dr Issa said: “Spatial genomics has the potential to make a major impact in transplantation research. Digital Spatial Profiling will allow us to collect comprehensive biological information from our precious tissue samples, including highly informative topographic data. We’re currently leading a clinical trial of a novel cellular therapy, regulatory T cells in renal transplantation, and we believe DSP will be invaluable in understanding patient response and guiding future decisions in this important program.”
The read more about the prize see:
https://nanostring.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/nanostring-announces-university-oxford-selected-winning
Dr Joanna Hester who has been awarded a grant from the Celgene Research Fellowship programme for her work on low dose Treg combination therapy.
Dr Fadi Issa who has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship
Rebeca Arroyo Hornero who has been awarded two prizes in April 2018; the "750 Prize in the Sciences" from Balliol College. These prizes for graduate students were established through the generosity of a Balliol Old Member to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the College. Rebeca also won the 1st prize at the Oxford Immunology Symposium. She won both prizes for her poster "Co-stimulatory modulation of human regulatory T cells for enhanced immunotherapy".
Prateek Katti, who won "Best Oral Presentation" at the NDS Awayday on 1st February 2018 for his presentation.
Rebeca Arroyo Hornero who was awarded the first travel award from the Andrew Bushell Memorial Travel Fund - Rebeca will use the travel funds to attend the 5th European Congress of Immunology and has submitted an abstract entitled: “Co-stimulatory modulation of human regulatory T cells for enhanced immunotherapy”
Monica Dolton who won the "NDS Employee of the Year" award in February 2018.
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.