The MacRobert Award is run by the Royal Academy of Engineering and recognises engineering teams that demonstrate outstanding innovation, tangible societal benefit and proven commerciality within the UK engineering sector.
The three finalists for the 2025 MacRobert Award include OrganOx (Oxford) for creating a transportable normothermic organ perfusion device, which is a world first originating from research at the University of Oxford.
OrganOx was spun out of the University of Oxford in 2008 by biomedical engineer Professor Constantin Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci and transplant surgeon Professor Peter Friend FMedSci FRCS to translate an innovative technology capable of keeping organs alive and functioning outside the body for several days. Applied today commercially to livers and investigationally to kidneys, OrganOx technology makes it possible to preserve organs for longer than ever before, test them objectively before deciding whether to transplant them, and potentially even use a second human or pig organ outside the body to enable the patient’s own liver to recover from injury and thus avoid a transplant altogether.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Professor Irene Tracey CBE FRS, commented: 'OrganOx exemplifies Oxford’s knack for combining and effectively translating technological innovation and the very best of medical science for patient and societal impact. Nurtured by cross-disciplinary research and collaboration, it is the first of many medical technologies and biotechnologies presently emerging from the University’s world-leading innovation and translational ecosystem that are transforming the future of healthcare.'