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Professor Michael Nicholson

Fellow
Subject: Medicine
Transplant organ preservation techniques and ischaemia-reperfusion injury
Professor of Transplant Surgery, Head of Academic General and Transplant Surgery, Director of the NIHR Blood and Transplant Research Unit

Michael Nicholson is Professor of Transplant Surgery at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Consultant Surgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He is the President of the UK Surgical Research Society. He is the Director of the NIHR-funded National Organ Donation and Transplant Research Unit. Kidney Research UK national research awards and fellowships have been named in his honour.

He qualified from Nottingham University and trained in transplant surgery in Leicester and Oxford. He introduced laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery for live kidney donation into clinical practice in the UK and has now performed 750 of these operations and more than 1100 kidney transplants.

His research group focus on developing renal normothermic machine perfusion with the aim of increasing organ utilisation rates and delivering pre-transplant allograft therapies. He has published 380 papers (h-index 66), supervised 39 successfully awarded doctorates and raised more than £20M in external grant funding.

Hosgood SA, Callaghan CJ, Wilson CH, Smith L, Mullings J, Meyhew J, Oniscu GC, Phillips BL, Bates L, Nicholson ML. Normothermic machine perfusion versus static cold storage in donation after circulatory death kidney transplantation: a randomised controlled trial. Nature Medicine 2023;29:1511-1519. 

MacMillan S, Hosgood SA, Nicholson ML. Enzymatic blood group conversion of human kidneys during ex vivo mormothermic machine perfusion. British Journal of Surgery 2023;110:133-137.

Albert C, Bracaglia L, Koide A, DiRito J, Hosgood SA, Nicholson ML, Pober JS, Saltzman WM, Koides S, Tietjen GT. Monobody adapter for functional antibody display on nanoparticles for adaptable targeted delivery applications. Nature Communications 2022;13:5998

Ferdinand JR, Hosgood SA, Moore T, Ferro A, Ward CJ, Castro-Dopica T, Nicholson ML. Cytokine absorption during human kidney perfusion reduces delayed graft function-associated inflammatory genes. American Journal of Transplantation 2021;21:2188-2199

Tietjen GT, Hosgood SA, Kirkiles-Smith NC, Cui J, Piotrowski-Daspit AS, Deep D, Song E, DiRito J, Al-Lamki R, Bradley A, Saeb-Parsy K, Bradley JR, Nicholson ML, Saltzman WM, Pober JS. Antibody-targeting can increase nanoparticle delivery to endothelial cells during ex vivo normothermic machine perfusion of human kidney. Science Translational Medicine 2017;29:418.

Hosgood SA, Nicholson ML. Age and cold storage in kidneys from circulatory-death donors. Lancet. 2013;381:703-4.

British Transplantation Society Lifetime Achievement Award
European Society of Transplantation Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement
Hunterian Professorship, Royal College of Surgeons of England;
Moynihan Medal, Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland;
Norman Tanner Prize for Surgery, Royal Society of Medicine;
Clarke Medal for Surgical Innovation, Royal College of Surgeons and Worshipful Society of Cutlers;
British Journal of Surgery Prize (best published manuscript of the year - 7 awards);
NIHR Senior Investigator Award.
2018