SpaceCom 2017

Dr. Robert Satcher
Former NASA Astronaut and Assistant Professor, Orthopedic Oncology, Division of Surgery
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center


Robert Lee Satcher, Jr., MD, PhD is recognized for his varied career interests and notable successes, from his training as a chemical engineer, to his practice as an orthopaedic surgeon in oncology, and service as a mission specialist astronaut for NASA. Dr. Satcher earned his BS and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1994. His postgraduate training included postdoctoral research fellowships at the University of California (Berkeley and San Francisco); a residency in orthopaedic surgery, also at the University of California San Francisco; as well as an orthopaedic oncology fellowship at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Dr. Satcher was recruited as an assistant professor in the department of orthopaedic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine where his clinical work was divided between adult and pediatric musculoskeletal oncology. He also served as an adjunct professor in the Biomedical Engineering department of Northwestern University. At the encouragement of colleagues and to fulfill a lifelong dream, Satcher applied and was selected for astronaut candidate training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. In 2009, he made his first trip to space as a mission specialist for the STS-129 mission to the International Space Station aboard space shuttle Atlantis, on which he completed two spacewalks. With the ending of the space shuttle program, Dr. Satcher returned to clinical practice in oncology, joining the faculty of Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2011, where he currently is an assistant professor in the department of orthopedic oncology. He has remained a productive clinician-scientist, continuing to publish papers and pursue research funding for his work studying mechanisms underlying bone metastasis to identify molecular targets for therapeutic interventions. His most recent grant was awarded for a new and innovative project. Awarded by AT&T, the grant will fund the initiation of a telesurgery platform for MD Anderson Cancer Center that will extend MD Anderson’s specialized surgical expertise to rural and underserved communities, providing opportunities for building new collaborations and creating mentoring programs that advance cancer surgery. Additionally, Satcher is involved with MD Anderson’s Global Oncology enterprise, where he is leading efforts to establish relationships that will ultimately lead to the construction of a Cancer Center in sub-Saharan Africa. Complementary to his telesurgery project, Dr. Satcher co-founded the eHealth Research Institute (eHRI), a collaborative endeavor being developed between Rice University, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, and MD Anderson Cancer Center to bring together physicians with academic and industry researchers in a unique consortium to improve access to specialized health care by pairing the latest in research and technology for the remote delivery of cancer care. Dr. Satcher is a member of numerous professional organizations including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery, Musculoskeletal Tumor Society, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, American Telemedicine Associaton, American Association of Cancer Research, Doctors United in Medical Missions, and the Orthopaedic Research Society, to name a few. He is also a member of several boards, including CSTEM, Teach for America, and Voorhees College (Denmark, SC). Dr. Satcher’s clinical interests have also included medical missions for outreach care to underserved areas in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Gabon

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