Katerina, let’s start off on a personal note, it’s been seven years since you competed in Falling Walls Lab. Is there a memory that still really stands out to you?
One of my fondest recollections as a winner of the Falling Walls Lab is presenting at the actual conference the following day and enjoying the honour of sharing the stage with Nobel Prize winners and other notable individuals. Stepping into the spotlight of that huge stage full of humility and a sense of wonder is a glowing memory that I will always keep with me. As a PhD student at the time, I felt extremely fortunate to be able to speak about my work in the presence of such an eminent audience. To have my vision of innovation selected out of 100 great ideas by such a distinguished jury was also a deeply gratifying validation. Having also lived and studied in Berlin, it is a city that is very close to my heart, so winning there was ever more significant. On the whole, I have only the warmest recollection of my time with the Falling Walls.
If you were back on the Falling Walls Lab stage today, how would you describe the breakthrough potential of your current work?
At Oxford Heartbeat we develop technology that makes minimally invasive cardiovascular surgeries more efficient and effective. It allows surgeons to rehearse different surgical scenarios within the safe environment of a software simulation, obtain information that is vital in preparation for surgery, and choose what works best for every patient. The core of what we do is the introduction of certainty into minimally invasive surgeries. This goes beyond technology – it’s a change of mindset. Our approach, which is very new in healthcare, is based on utilising all available clinical information with the help of sophisticated technological tools to be able to make the best care decisions for every individual patient case. There is an abundance of data that is currently not being brought into decision making because it is either not collated or not properly analysed. Oxford Heartbeat is changing that with the power of technology, and our work is relevant to many other areas of medicine. What we do is the future of medicine: it embodies personalised care with the patient at the centre of everything.