UC San Francisco reached into the cosmos at a special gathering with top research and clinical scientists from NASA to explore opportunities to jointly benefit patients on Earth with cancer and other diseases.
The Oct. 4 symposium, featuring top leaders from UCSF, UCSF Health, NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley and the University of California, included poignant bedside visits with pediatric patients and a scientific roundtable designed to share knowledge and spark medical innovation.
We go to space not just to explore the stars but to improve life here on earth."
"This is an incredibly exciting potential partnership," said UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS, to about 100 leading cancer researchers, clinicians, space health scientists and other representatives. He made a personal pledge to make the collaboration "both successful and sustainable."
"At UCSF, our north star is innovation, looking for the next frontier in life sciences and in health care," Hawgood said. "We understand that we need to challenge ourselves to think boldly, and there's probably no other organization on the planet that thinks boldly like NASA. I think we're made for each other."
The event was hosted by UCSF and held at the San Francisco Mission Bay campus in conjunction with the Biden Cancer Moonshot, a national initiative to halve the nation's cancer death rate by 2047. Cancer is the country's second-leading cause of death. In 2016, in the early days of the Moonshot, UCSF hosted cancer officials to discuss fast-tracking novel therapies. NASA joined the initiative in 2022.
"We've had collaborations with NASA for years, but this is elevated and revolutionary, and we are building on the strengths of both institutions," said Sharmila Majumdar, PhD, a UCSF professor and vice chair for research with the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging who was one of the participants discussing the parallel effects of cancer and space flight.
"To update astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous words when he stepped onto the moon in 1969, this first step for research is a giant leap for cancer and humanity," she said.
