DPhil Tamsyn Clark awarded Raven prize by British Association of Surgical Oncology

Tamsyn Clark was awarded the British Association of Surgical Oncology (BASO) Raven prize for her presentation entitled: 'Preclinical safety and feasibility of in situ Isolated Normothermic Liver Chemoperfusion (INLiC)' during the 2021 BASO Annual Scientific Conference.

Tamsyn is a CRUK Clinical Research Fellow currently completing a DPhil in Engineering Science under the supervision of Professor Constantin Coussios, Professor Bob Carlisle and Professor Peter Friend.

Her research investigates the potential of normothermic machine perfusion to study and enable the targeted delivery of therapeutics to human organs. INLiC involves the surgical isolation of a liver within the patient and its connection to a novel device (OrganOx metra) for perfusing the organ with whole blood to maintain it in an oxygenated and functioning state even whilst disconnected from the body’s blood supply. The research conducted by Miss Clark in a preclinical model demonstrated that it is possible to deliver much higher concentrations of chemotherapy to the organ using this technique than is possible using conventional systemic administration.

Following a period of machine perfusion, the organ was flushed prior to reconnection to the body’s main blood supply, demonstrating that very little of the chemotherapy drug reached non-target tissues such as the heart following INLiC. Subject to successful clinical trials, the technique could have a significant impact on enabling improved efficacy and safety of current and future cancer therapeutics for the treatment of single-organ-confined cancers.

Miss Clark says of the award, "This is a thrilling step towards using novel organ perfusion technology in the treatment of patients with liver cancers, made possible through a unique clinician-engineer-scientist collaboration".

Ronald Raven, OBE, was a surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospital. He had a distinguished career as a surgical oncologist spanning over 30years and was co-founder of British Association of Surgical Oncology (BASO) in 1973. The award was first presented in 1973 and with few exceptions has been awarded every year since. Every year, a large number of abstracts are submitted for BASO Raven Prize for oral presentations at the BASO Scientific Meeting. The winner of this prestigious award recieves a certificate and an award of £600.