Jhan Sebastián Saavedra Torres, a doctor graduated from the University of Cauca, will participate in the virtual meeting, which will take place from February 1 to 4, 2021, together with researchers funded by the various NASA programs.

With an essay called "The decrease in cardiovascular function in space flights: altered functional and developmental properties of cell cultures", the graduate of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Cauca, Jhan Sebastián Saavedra Torres, he will link to the event Researchers Workshop of the Human Research Program of 2021 (HRP IWS 2021) as an evaluator and a fellow of 80% of the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) to be part of the PhD students.

The event, organized by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), will take place from February 1 to 4, 2021 and brings together virtually all researchers funded by the various NASA programs.

Jhan Sebastián Saavedra Torres, who graduated from the Medicine program in 2020, has until August 26, 2021 to submit his doctoral proposal and begin the process of 5 years of work in the laboratory at UCLA, where he will work with the doctors and researchers Siobhan Braybrook and Karen Lyons of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of California, scientific experts in the areas of cell biology.

As reported by Saavedra Torres, his theme is based on the effects of space flight and simulated microgravity on the expression of cells that are cardiovascular progenitors, highlighting that there are implications for repair based on very negative cell cultures to be used in transplantation to humans until achieving a balance; It is all because microgravity represents a stressful environment for human beings and for the genes that derive new routes not described at the molecular level, which are activated in favor of survival, diverting the possible recovery of it in states of gravity on planet earth.

“If we have a patient who suffers a heart attack, and the use of modified cell crops in states of microgravity, transplanted to that damaged heart is arranged, it is possible to have partial repairs of that tissue for a short time giving signs of viability and recovery, but later there would be an imminent deterioration that cannot be compensated for by the lack of adaptation of this tissue as it is not again in microgravity states”, adds the doctor Saavedra.

The example to understand the research ideas of the young doctor is: If we have a patient who suffers a heart attack, and the use of modified cell cultures in microgravity states, transplanted to that damaged heart, can have partial repairs of that tissue for a short time showing signs of viability and recovery, but later there would be an imminent deterioration that cannot be compensated for by the lack of adaptation of that tissue as it is not again in microgravity states.

For the doctor Saavedra, cell crops are like the famous phrase of the film director Steven Spielberg, who says that each year we are a different person. "Science, each year will be immersed in a different stage and what is not possible today, tomorrow will be able to approach the possibilities of being real", he concludes.

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Faculty of Health Sciences

Email: fsalud@unicauca.edu.co