OrganOx, the 2025 MacRobert Award winners and organ preservation pioneers, is the focus of this special edition of Innovation Incoming. OrganOx is a University of Oxford spinout that has developed two of the most complex medical devices ever designed and built in the UK. The first device, already licensed, maintains livers in a functioning state outside the body for at least twice as long as conventional cold preservation techniques, dramatically increasing the number of transplants for patients, eradicating night-time operations for clinicians, and reducing overall healthcare costs for providers.
Catch up on this event to gain insights into the development of the winning technology, its real-world applications and what it tells us about the future of engineering innovation.
Hosted by Laura Foster, BBC Health and Science Reporter and Senior Reporter, we were delighted to have on our panel:
- Professor Constantin Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci, OrganOx’s co-founder and Chief Technical Officer
- Dr Alison Vincent CBE FREng, MacRobert Chair of Judges
- Dr Pankaj Chandak, Paediatic Transplant Fellow at Great Ormond Street and Evelina Children's Hospital.
Established in 1969, the MacRobert Award has recognised world-changing innovation. Each year, it celebrates the very best in UK engineering by honouring a team that demonstrates outstanding innovation, tangible societal benefit and proven commerciality. Bringing together leading voices to explore the impact and significance of this winning technology, this Innovation Incoming event provides a unique opportunity to go behind the scenes of a breakthrough that exemplifies the power of engineering to change lives, drive economic growth and address global challenges.
Laura Foster (Host)
Laura Foster is a senior reporter, correspondent, and presenter for BBC News, with over 13 years of broadcasting experience. For the past eight years, she has specialised in health, science, and environment reporting, delivering stories across both national and international BBC platforms. Her presenting work includes BBC Radio 4’s Inside Health and the BBC World Service’s Health Check.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Laura’s science communication work gained global recognition. Her reporting was adopted by the United Nations and the NHS, translated into more than 40 languages, and became the most viewed content of the BBC’s pandemic coverage—earning her international acclaim for her clarity and impact.
Laura began her career as an apprentice and remains deeply committed to inspiring others to pursue careers in science. As a BBC STEM ambassador, she champions diversity in STEM and is especially passionate about encouraging more women and girls to discover the joy of working in science.
Widely sought after as a host, presenter, and moderator, Laura brings warmth, deep expertise, and an infectious enthusiasm for science to every event she’s part of.
Professor Constantin Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci
Professor Constantin Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci is the Chief Technical Officer at OrganOx. He received his BA, MEng and PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge and was elected to the first statutory chair in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford in 2011, with special responsibility for drug delivery and therapeutic devices. He founded and heads the Biomedical Ultrasonics, Biotherapy and Biopharmaceuticals Laboratory (BUBBL), a research group of some 50 researchers today housed in the Marcela wing of the Botnar Research Centre.
He received the Silver Medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2017 for contributions to the translation of novel medical technologies into clinical practice, was elected a Fellow of the Academy in 2019, awarded an OBE in 2022 for services to biomedical engineering, and elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2024.
Dr Alison Vincent CBE FREng
Dr Alison Vincent CBE FREng is the current Chair of the MacRobert Award Committee. Shas deep cybersecurity and software engineering expertise that she has applied at Board level in mission-critical, global businesses (including banking and telecoms). She was responsible for delivering significant cybersecurity control improvements at HSBC.
She has also driven technology innovation throughout her career, influencing Agile and DevOps changes across enterprise global teams to free capacity for innovation and most recently delivering a new Cyber Innovation Hub for HSBC in Tel Aviv. Dr Vincent has a long track record in addressing engineering skills shortfalls including as an ambassador for WISE ensuring on-going technical talent in the workforce.
Pankaj Chandak
Pankaj is a paediatic transplant fellow at Great Ormond Street and Evelina Children's Hospital. He is also a post doctoral research fellow at KCL and Centre for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell/Regenerative Medicine, Institute of Child Health, UCL. His scientific interests are machine perfusion of human organs for therapeutic regeneration and repair and complex paediatric transplantation. He is also active in public engagement in science.
His research led to the use of 3D printing for paediatric transplantation a human model of transplant rejection using warm machine perfusion. He has been invited speaker to several societies including The Royal Society and The Royal Institution and has received several awards including The British Science Association Charles Darwin Award Lecture, The RCSEng Lister Medal and Prize, The Royal Society of Medicine Norman Tanner Medal as well as the RCSEng Cutler's Medal for innovation. He has made appearances for BBC film and World Service Radio and set up the UK's first Children's Transplant Choir with BBC Children in Need. He was Medical Advisor of the Netflix Series The Crown and appeared in several episodes and has made several short films for the Science Museum, The Hunterian Museum and The BBC NHS 75th Anniversary. In 2023, he was awarded the prestigious Hunterian Professorship by the Royal College of Surgeons of England as well as the KCL Bulkley Barry Cooper Professorship Lecture. He was elected a Fellow of The Linnean Society (FLS) and a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS) having been awarded the Combined Royal Colleges Medal for advances in medical imaging science from the all the U.K. Royal Colleges.