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Research Studentship in Normothermic Machine Perfusion

3.5-year DPhil studentship 

Project: Normothermic Liver and Kidney Perfusion for Organ Preservation, Drug Testing or In Situ Therapies 

Potential supervisors: Prof Fadi Issa, Dr Richard Dumbill, Prof Robert Carlisle, Prof Alex Gordon-Weeks, Dr Tamsyn Clark, Dr Alex Sagar

Normothermic machine perfusion of ex-situ isolated organs is a platform technology with a broad array of emerging applications, across both solid-organ transplantation and surgical oncology. Current areas of focus, as applied to both kidney and liver, include improved organ preservation and viability testing prior to transplantation, pre-clinical testing of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of novel therapeutics for cancer and non-cancer applications, and in situ organ perfusion applications for targeted single-organ confined drug and gene delivery. Applications are invited for original research falling under any of these three areas towards completion of a DPhil.

Eligibility 

This studentship is funded through a partnership with an industrial sponsor and is open to up to five Home or/and overseas students (full award – fees plus stipend). There are awards available both for non-clinical and clinically qualified candidates. The industrial collaboration further provides a budget for equipment and consumables required for experimentation, as well as travel support to attend and present at national and international conferences. 

Award value

Course fees are covered in full. The stipend (tax-free maintenance grant) is at least the UKRI minimum stipend for the first year (£21,805 in 2026/27) with the potential for higher awards dependent on clinical experience, and at least this amount for a further two and a half years.

Candidate requirements 

Prospective candidates will be judged according to how well they meet the following criteria:

  • A first class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours (or equivalent) in Biomedical Engineering, Surgery, Medicine, any of the Natural Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Biochemistry) or other discipline relevant to normothermic machine perfusion
  • Excellent English written and spoken communication skills.

The following skills are desirable but not essential:

  • Prior experience of biomedical and in vivo experimentation  
  • Prior practice experience with tissue handling, either in a clinical or laboratory context
  • Prior experience of working with flowing blood and blood-derived biomarkers  
  • Prior experience of working in the field of drug delivery or gene therapy for either cancer and non-cancer applications
  • Experience of testing or modelling pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of novel macromolecular therapeutics 
  • Experience of analytical techniques including quantitative PCR, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, bulk RNA sequencing, ELISA.

Application Procedure

Informal enquiries are encouraged and should be addressed to the following depending on area of interest:

Kidney - Dr Richard Dumbill (richard.dumbill@nds.ox.ac.uk)

Liver - Dr Tamsyn Clark (tamsyn.clark@univ.ox.ac.uk) / Dr Alex Sagar (alexander.sagar@gtc.ox.ac.uk)

Drug Discovery - Professor Robert Carlisle (robert.carlisle@eng.ox.ac.uk).

Immunology – Professor Fadi Issa (fadi.issa@nds.ox.ac.uk)

Candidates must submit a graduate application form and are expected to meet the graduate admissions criteria.  Details are available on the DPhil in Surgical Sciences course page of the University website.

Please quote 26SURG02WEB in all correspondence and in the studentship reference on the graduate application form.

Successful candidates will be placed at a college that accepts for this studentship, so it is not necessary to list a college preference.

Application deadline: noon on 3 July 2026 

Interviews expected: 16 July 2026

Start date: October 2026