Professor Constantin Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci

Background

Professor Constantin Coussios is the Director of the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering. 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 therapeutic applications. He founded and heads the Biomedical Ultrasonics, Biotherapy and Biomaterials Laboratory (BUBBL), a research group of some 50 researchers today housed in the Marcela wing of the Botnar Research Centre.

Between 2014 and 2021, he served as Director of the £11m Oxford Centre for Drug Delivery Devices (OxCD3) supported by a national programme grant from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in collaboration with the pharmaceutical and medical device industry to improve oncological drug delivery: during this period, he led TarDox, a first-in-human trial of ultrasound-triggered targeted drug delivery in patients with liver tumours (Lancet Oncology 2018). In 2021, he became the founding director of the Podium Institute for Sports Medicine and Technology, supported by a £25m benefaction to the University.

In 2008, Prof. Coussios  was one of two academic founders of the Oxford University spin-out OrganOx Ltd., which has developed a novel normothermic perfusion device for improved liver and kidney preservation prior to transplantation through to randomized trials (Nature 2018), CE marking, FDA approval, and successful commercialization and widespread adoption in both Europe and North America. In 2014, he co-founded OxSonics Ltd, which is commercializing cavitation-enhanced oncological drug delivery, and in 2016 he co-founded OrthoSon Ltd, which is developing novel technologies for micro-invasive replacement and repair of the intervertebral disc.

Prof. Coussios received the UK’s Institute of Acoustics’ Young Person’s Award for Innovation in Acoustical Engineering in 2007, was elected as Secretary-General of the International Society for Therapeutic Ultrasound between 2006-2010 and was honoured with the Society’s Fred Lizzi award in 2012. He was elected as the youngest ever Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America in 2009, and received the Society’s Bruce Lindsay award in 2012.

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 Royal Academy of Engineering in 2019, awarded an OBE in 2022 for services to biomedical engineering, and elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2024.

Research Interests

Biomedical applications of acoustics, fluid mechanics and control; Therapeutic ultrasound, particularly the exploitation of acoustic cavitation and thermal effects of sound for non-invasive cancer therapy, targeted drug and gene delivery, and transdermal vaccine delivery; Biomedical imaging and signal processing, particularly in the context of Passive Acoustic Mapping for real-time monitoring of acoustic cavitation and therapeutic ultrasound processes;  Normothermic isolated organ perfusion for , drug testing, targeted drug and gene delivery, as well as for organ preservation and repair prior to transplantation; Technologies for sport safety, including wearables, computer vision, and imaging, particularly in the context of improving and preventing head injuries and concussion.  

Selected Publications

• Lyon, M.D. Gray, C. Mannaris, L. K. Folkes, M. Stratford, L. Campo, D.Y.F. Chung, S. Scott, M. Anderson, R. Goldin, R. Carlisle, F. Wu, M.R. Middleton, F.V. Gleeson and C-.C. Coussios, “TARDOX: A Phase I trial Investigating the Safety and Feasibility of Ultrasound-Triggered Targeted Drug Delivery in Liver Tumours”, Lancet Oncology 19(8): 1027-1039 (2018).
• Nasralla, C-.C. Coussios, H. Mergental, M. Z. Akhtar, A. J. Butler, C.D.L. Ceresa, V. Chiocchia, S. J. Dutton, J. C. García-Valdecasas, N. Heaton, C. Imber, W. Jassem, I. Jochmans, J. Karani, S.R. Knight, P. Kocabayoglu, M. Malagò, D. Mirza, P.J. Morris, A. Pallan, A. Paul, M. Pavel, M.T. P.R. Perera, J. Pirenne, R. Ravikumar, L. Russell, S. Upponi, C. J.E. Watson, A. Weissenbacher, R.J. Ploeg, P.J. Friend, “A Randomized Trial of Normothermic Preservation in Liver Transplantation”, Nature 557: 50–56 (2018).
• Ravikumar, W. Jassem, H. Mergental, N. Heaton, D. Mirza, T. Perera, A. Quaglia, D. Holroyd, T. Vogel, C.-C Coussios and P.J. Friend, “Liver Transplantation After Ex Vivo Normothermic Machine Preservation: a Phase 1 (First-in-Man) Cinical Trial”, Am. J. Transplant. 16(6):1779-87 (2016).
• J.J. Kwan, R. Myers, C.M. Coviello, S.M. Graham, A.R. Shah, E. Stride, R.C. Carlisle and C.-C. Coussios, “Ultrasound-Propelled Nanocups for Drug Delivery”, Small 11: 5305-5314 (2015)
• Mo. R. Carlisle, R. Laga, R. Myers, S. Graham, R. Cawood, K. Ulbrich L. Seymour and C.-C. Coussios, “Increasing the density of nanomedicines improves their ultrasound-mediated delivery to tumours“, J. Controlled Release 210: 10-18 (2015) {Jorge Heller J. Controlled Release Outstanding Paper Award}
• Carlisle, J. Choi, M. Bazan-Peregrino, R. Laga, V. Subr, L. Kotska, K. Ubrich, and C.-C. Coussios and L.W. Seymour, “Polymer Stealthing and Focused Ultrasound to Enable Tumor Accumulation and Penetration of Virotherapy”, J. Nat. Cancer Inst. 105(22): 1701–1710 (2013).
• Mo, C.-C. Coussios, L. Seymour and R. Carlisle, “Ultrasound-Enhanced Drug Delivery for Cancer”, Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery 9(12): 15125-1538 (2012).
• Jensen, R. Ritchie, M. Gyongy, J.R.T. Collin, T. Leslie and C.-C. Coussios, “Spatio-Temporal Monitoring of HIFU Therapy by Passive Acoustic Mapping”, Radiology 262(1): 252-261 (2012).
• Gyongy and C.-C. Coussios, ‘Passive Spatial Mapping of Inertial Cavitation during HIFU Exposure”, IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 57(1):48-56 (2010).
• C.-C. Coussios and R.A. Roy, ‘Applications of Acoustics and Cavitation to Non-Invasive Therapy and Drug Delivery’, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 40: 395-420 (2008).