News & Events: Research on International Space Station (ISS)

Cardiac and heart/lung transplant surgeon-scientist Tobias Deuse, M.D. has been awarded a 4-year $400K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate space-related physiological changes in liver aging and regeneration. The work will be carried out aboard the International Space Station (ISS) using a novel platform, tissue engineered liver immune chips in microgravity. Dr. Deuse is Professor and Interim Chief of the Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery, and Director of Minimally-Invasive Cardiac Surgery at UCSF. He is also a principal investigator in the Transplant and [...]

Surgeon-scientist Tammy T. Chang, MD, PhD, principal investigator in the The Chang Laboratory for Liver Tissue Engineering, has been awarded grants by two prestigious federal funders of research, the NASA Space Biology Program, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in collaboration with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS).  Dr. Chang is a gastrointestinal surgeon who takes care of patients primarily in an acute care setting.  She holds an appointment as an assistant professor in the Division of General Surgery. Dr. Chang's research is focused on microgravity as it [...]

Sonja Schrepfer, M.D., Ph.D. and Tobias Deuse, M.D. have been awarded a 4-year $2.4M NIH grant by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to investigate space-related physiological changes, analogous to those observed during aging, including defects in bone healing, loss of cardiovascular and neurological capacity, and altered immune function. Dr. Schrepfer is associate professor and director of the UCSF Transplant and Stem Cell Immunobiology (TSI) Lab. Dr. Deuse is associate professor and director of minimally-invasive cardiac surgery at UCSF. He is also [...]