Portal de Murcia
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The University of Murcia has dressed up to receive in its cloister of honor the doctor and scientist Robert Sackstein, who has been invested as Doctor Honoris Causa in an act held in the Faculty of Chemistry.
With this appointment, the institution recognizes Sackstein all his contribution in the field of hematology and the contribution of his research to clinical practice.
Among his achievements are the discovery of those factors that determine that a bone marrow transplant is successful.
The professor at Harvard University began his relationship with the University of Murcia in 1995 when Donnall Thomas, Nobel Laureate in Medicine, attended the opening of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit of the General University Hospital in 1990.
Since then, his relationship with the University of Murcia has been increasing, favoring the training of students in the Region in his laboratory.
In addition, the scientific collaboration between the research groups of Harvard and the University of Murcia has allowed the development in Murcia of pioneering clinical trials in the world thanks to technology patented by Dr. Sackstein.
In these studies, multidisciplinary teams from the Faculty of Medicine of the UMU and the Virgen de la Arrixaca University Clinical Hospital collaborate.
His contribution to the training of professionals in the Region is completed with the co-direction of the course of the International University of the Sea Transplant and Cell Therapy: from the Bench to the Bedside.
Professor José María Moraleda, in charge of carrying out the laudation of the new Doctor Honoris Causa, assured that "Sackstein embodies the best definition of the doctor-scientist, a figure of exceptional value who combines research in basic sciences with clinical assistance, and bases this research in finding answers to the problems of patients, the so-called translational research. "
During his speech, Dr. Sackstein has reviewed his personal and professional career and has illustrated those present with a speech in which he has explained some of his scientific efforts to discover how cells in the blood flow migrate to the bone marrow ;
some works that have resulted in the creation of a technological platform to make possible all cell-based therapies.
His career, he said, began in his second year as a medical student at Harvard when he began to have contact with bone marrow transplant operations, now better known as a hematopoietic stem cell transplant.
In this procedure, blood-forming stem cells (hematopoietic stem cells, CMH) are harvested from a donor and then injected into the bloodstream of a recipient patient.
The MHCs travel within the bloodstream to the marrow of the recipient and begin to produce new blood cells.
The finding in those years that one in four patients who underwent this transplant died within a few weeks because they could never recover the ability to produce blood cells by the so-called 'graft failure' motivated his professional career and have turned him in a world reference in its field.
Sackstein has claimed to feel "extremely honored to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Murcia" and has finished his speech with an image of what he has called "my family in Murcia", among which are Dr. Moraleda and other professionals of Murcian medicine.
The rector of the University of Murcia, José Luján, closed the event with a speech in which he stressed that "talent and his natural gifts for research, together with the teaching of Donnall Thomas, have allowed Dr. Sackstein to achieve the highest peak of knowledge and science ".
Luján has reviewed the honorary doctors appointed at the UMU at the proposal of the Faculty of Medicine, a relationship that was inaugurated by Dr. Rafael Méndez.
"Dear Robert, welcome to the faculty of doctors of a University of Murcia Welcome to your home Your love for science, your intellectual honesty, your teaching and your social commitment will be for us encouragement and example," concluded the rector.
Source: Universidad de Murcia
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