Dear AWG members, here’s a reminder for today’s Female Repro monthly meeting:
We’re excited to welcome guest speaker Dr George Pantalos on 5/19/25 at 1pm EST.
Talk title: “Creating Surgical Capabilities for Exploration Spaceflight”
You can find the meeting link under the “AWG Meeting Calendar”. https://awg.osdr.space/t/female-repro-awg-meeting/923
We are exploring “Space Surgery”. Gynaecological emergencies are common and may require surgical intervention in space; therefore, surgical and intervention capabilities are an important aspect of space research.
George Pantalos, BSAAE, MSBE, PhD, FAIMBE, has been a cardiovascular explorer for over 50 years. Much of that effort has included the development of surgical devices and procedures to make his research projects possible. He has been a Professor of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Louisville, in partnership with Jewish Hospital and Norton Children’s Hospital, since July 2000, after holding similar appointments at the University of Utah for 17 years. His efforts to investigate cardiovascular function have focused on understanding and treating heart failure with mechanical devices including artificial hearts, ventricular assist devices, and cardiopulmonary support systems which he has helped develop, tested, and implement clinically in patients with two legs and with four legs, with big hearts and with little hearts.
George has also collaborated with NASA for many years helping to understand cardiovascular adaptation to the weightlessness of space flight and the return to Earth. George as flown 62 NASA-sponsored research missions on parabolic flight research aircraft which led to the development of a cardiovascular diastolic function experiment - that included an instrumented artificial heart beating on a circulation simulator - that flew twice on the Space Shuttle Discovery. Other reduced gravity research projects have included delivery of effective chest compressions for CPR in 0-G, organ perfusion in 0-G, and the development of medical technologies for exploration space missions. The surgical fluid management system being developed by his project team completed successful parabolic flights and one suborbital spaceflight evaluation on the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo in 2021. A suborbital flight with preserved red blood cells for transfusion therapy is planned for 2026. He is also collaborating with the US Air Force and US Space Force to explore their technological needs for space healthcare capabilities. His motto for all of these efforts is “Share the adventure!” which he does with his students and collaborators.
Please join us this afternoon, we look forward to welcoming you all for this month’s talk 
