ANEURYSM TREATMENT SUCCESS CELEBRATED

The direct translation of Oxford research into life-saving medical breakthroughs was on plain view at the Department of Engineering Science on November 15, when Dr Katerina Spranger was awarded a prestigious purple plaque by Innovate UK.

Dr Spranger (Wadham, 2010) completed a DPhil in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford in 2014, focusing on modelling implanted medical devices, and is now founder and CEO of an award-winning medical startup, called Oxford Heartbeat.

Innovate UK (part of UK Research and Innovation) launched the Purple Plaques scheme in 2019, taking its inspiration from the more familiar blue plaque scheme that recognises the buildings where famous people lived or worked.

Mounted on the walls of educational premises, the Purple Plaques given to winners of the Women in Innovation Award serve as a lasting source of inspiration to future innovators and scientists.

The Women in Innovation Award was created to improve the recognition of trailblazing women and to inspire more girls into STEM. With only 35% of girls studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects beyond GCSE, there is a significant imbalance of gender in these areas.

Upon unveiling her plaque in the atrium of the Information Engineering Building on Banbury Road, Dr Spranger noted that it was almost exactly a decade since her final viva for the DPhil, adding: 'Oxford was the springboard from which Oxford Heartbeat was founded, so I am proud to have this award displayed at my alma mater. I hope it will inspire future generations of women to start their own business or get involved in groundbreaking science research.'

During her time at Oxford Dr Spranger, who grew up in Odessa, Ukraine and then took her first degree at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, also took an extra course around Science Innovation at Oxford's Saïd Business School. She credits that extra link, plus actually watching how surgery takes place up the hill at the John Radcliffe Hospital, with knowing what she wanted to do and how to make it work commercially.

It's an insight. She reports that there are 'so many amazing engineering technologies that might never be used in the real-world setting if they are not fit for purpose.' In a rapidly changing medical marketplace commercial organisations have to be 'agile and adaptable.'

In one sense a testimony to Oxford's overall innovation offering, still the real credit goes to Dr Spranger for her very strong vision about what she wanted to achieve and then what was required to achieve it, beyond just completing a DPhil.

The technology that her company has developed involves AI-powered simulation software that can quickly perform simulated surgical procedures, mitigating risk to the human patient when they undergo surgery.

The particular field in Dr Spranger has applied this insight is aneurysms to the brain, where a bloodclot requires high-risk vascular neurosurgery.

In order to correctly place a flow diverter in the blocked artery, to allow the surgery to proceed, it remains the case that there is a degree of professional judgement required in most cases, about sizing and placement. This is high risk and as many as one in five surgeries become complex, sometimes resulting in strokes.

Oxford Heartbeat's PreSize Neurovascular software greatly reduces the subjectivity of this part of the procedure and is being rolled out in hundreds of test cases since 2023, including in Ukraine where the software has been helped the operation on soldiers suffering head injuries as a result of the illegal Russian invasion since February 2022.

A resulting assessment paper published in the Ukrainian Neurosurgical Journal summarised:

'The use of the PreSize Neurovascular simulation software (Oxford Heartbeat Ltd.) for preoperative software simulation allows to accurately size and position a flow diverter, precisely plan the surgery, predictably reduce its duration, technical difficulties, and the risk of complications or failures, reduce the need to optimize the flow diverter's opening with the balloon angioplasty or implantation of a second flow diverter.'

In layman's language, the software works well and saves lives. If you had an attack of intense headaches resulting from an aneurysm, you might live to see the day because of Dr Spranger's great success.

Recognising the scale and quality of her success was Jonathan Grinbaud, Innovate UK Business Growth Project Manager, Department head Professor Clive Siviour, and Professor James Naismith (pictured above with Dr Spranger), who heads Oxford's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS) Division, plus a wide group of friends, family, supporters and colleagues.

The plaque will now be affixed to the outside of the Information Engineering Building, observable from the Banbury Road-facing front of the building set within the Keble triangle.