Bera, Dr Kasia

Academic Background

Kasia is a Graduate Entry Medical and Clinical Tutor, Non-stipendiary Lecturer at St Anne’s College.

Before studying medicine, she graduated from the highly competitive Masters in Molecular Medicine in Erlangen, Germany where she discovered a new protease cleavage site involved in regulation of the ENaC ion channel. She moved to Oxford to complete a Wellcome Trust OXION DPhil studentship in neuroimmunology to study a new type of encephalitis. She was involved in identifying where autoantibodies can bind the N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor to cause disease. It was working on this novel autoimmune encephalitis since its early discovery, which resulted in an application to go back to university to become a medical student– here, at St Anne’s.

After graduation, she worked as an Academic Foundation Doctor in Bristol in Academic Surgery and subsequently was awarded an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship in General and Transplantation Surgery in Oxford. Her work allowed her complete core surgical training alongside gaining experience in clinical trial design and further training in research methodology. She has worked as a General Surgery Registrar within the Thames Valley deanery since 2018 before changing to work within the Vascular Surgery. She has been working in Vascular Surgery as Senior Clinical Fellow since 2020 alongside work as honorary Senior Postdoctoral Fellow.

Research Interests

She is interested in combining her background in neuroimmunology with a passion for surgery, with an interested in transplant and vascular surgery. One aspect of her research focuses on understanding the role of brain death and its contribution to outcomes in organ donation after brain death (DBD) as well as understanding brain injury in the context of donation after circulatory death (DCD). Kasia has also an interest in studying and improving research methodology such as outcome measures in trials and ensuring that trial populations reflect patient populations. Since 2023 she is an Associate Editor at BJS/BJS Open.

Teaching

She teaches undergraduate and graduate medical students at St Anne’s both at the bedside and in classroom tutorials. She has supervised student projects both in the lab and those undertaking systematic reviews across the fields of transplant and vascular surgery as well as perioperative care. She also teaches students on placement in vascular surgery and has taught on the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences Basics in Medical Education course.

Kasia has formal pedagogical training (PGCert TLHE) and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).