𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁: Patricia Savi Glowe, a pioneer in healthcare on Earth and beyond

“𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁” is back, inspiring stories, unconventional professional and personal journeys, and insights into the world created by innovators and pioneers across the ocean, the cradle of innovation. Paola Del Zotto Ferrari, Resident Director of PhoenixSpark Inc., interviewed Patricia Savi Glowe, Chief Executive Officer of BioAstra and MedAstra, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing healthcare technologies for extreme and remote environments, on Earth and in space.

With a degree in Physical and Biological Anthropology and Bioethics Research from Arizona State University, Patricia served as Clinical Research Coordinator at Stanford University from 2009 to 2012, after which she joined The Mount Sinai Hospital, where – from 2013 to 2021- she served as Clinical Research Coordinator, then Program Manager, then Director of Strategy and Operations, before assuming the role of Co-founder and Head of Research Operations at the Mount Sinai COVID Informatics Center in 2021. After a year at ProofPilot, an end-to-end platform dedicated to the clinical experience that connects industry professionals and expertise, he founded BioAstra and medAstra with a mission: to study pioneering biomedical research in the space context to better understand human health under challenging conditions and to develop rapidly deployable healthcare modules capable of providing advanced diagnostics, monitoring, and telemedicine in resource-limited settings, thereby transforming the way healthcare is delivered. BioAstra is, therefore, redefining the future of medicine for a world that goes beyond traditional boundaries.

You spent over a decade building some of the most forward-looking digital health programs in the world — from Mount Sinai’s COVID Informatics Center to AI-driven clinical trial design at ProofPilot. At what point did you realize that space was not just a frontier for exploration, but a missing piece of medical infrastructure — and what triggered the leap from Earth-based innovation to founding BioAstra?
I didn’t start with space as the goal. I started with a frustration. Working at some of the world’s leading health institutions, especially during my time building the COVID Informatics Center at Mount Sinai Health System and later at ProofPilot, I was focused on improving how we deliver care across barriers. Better data, better workflows, better trial design. But over time, I kept running into the same constraint. We were optimizing within a system designed to maintain itself, not to transform. Healthcare presents itself as highly connected, but that connection is more fragile than we admit. When supply chains, specialists, data, or even basic environmental stability break down, the system struggles in ways that feel disproportionate. Most patients have experienced some version of this in their own care.

The realization for me was that space doesn’t have that luxury. In space, there is no excess infrastructure. Every system has to be intentional, autonomous, and tightly integrated. You don’t get redundancy through abundance; you get it through design. That’s when it clicked. Space wasn’t just a frontier; it was the most extreme version of the problem I had been trying to solve on Earth. If we could design medical systems that work there, they would fundamentally change how we think about care in remote, underserved, or disrupted environments here. Founding BioAstra was less of a leap and more of a continuation. It was the point where I stopped trying to optimize a system that sustains itself and started asking how to build one that can actually evolve.

medAstra recently launched with a bold idea: the same medical systems built to keep astronauts alive in space can improve patient care on Earth. Can you walk us through a concrete example of how a space-derived technology is already making a difference — say, in surgical recovery or longevity medicine?
One of the biggest misconceptions about space health is that it’s futuristic. In reality, many of the constraints astronauts face are versions of problems we already have on Earth. At BioAstra and now through medAstra, we’re taking systems designed for constrained, high-risk environments and applying them to areas of patient care where coordination and recovery are often fragmented. A concrete example is post-surgical recovery. Right now, recovery is largely episodic. A patient leaves a surgical center with instructions, maybe a follow-up appointment, and limited visibility into how they’re actually doing day-to-day. Complications are often caught late because the system isn’t continuously observing or adapting. In space, that approach wouldn’t work. You need continuous monitoring, integrated biosensing, and decision support that can operate without immediate access to a physician. We’re translating that into structured recovery systems that combine biosensors, longitudinal data collection, and guided protocols into a single, cohesive experience. Instead of asking “did the patient come back when something went wrong,” we’re asking “can we see and respond to changes before they become a problem.”

That same model extends into longevity and chronic care. Not in a vague sense, but in a very operational one. Continuous data, tighter real-world feedback loops, and systems designed to function even when the traditional healthcare environment isn’t immediately available.

You are operating in a sector where regulatory frameworks, reimbursement models, and clinical standards are still being written in real time. What does it take to build a company — and an entire medical infrastructure — for an environment where the rulebook is incomplete? And what role do you see Europe, and countries like Italy with its aerospace and biomedical heritage, playing in shaping these global standards?
You’re right that the rulebook is still being written, and I actually think that’s an advantage if you approach it the right way. The mistake would be to wait for clarity before building. By the time frameworks are fully defined, the most important design decisions have already been made by whoever was willing to operate in that ambiguity. What it takes is a dual mindset. On one side, you have to be deeply grounded in existing regulatory and clinical standards. You can’t ignore them, especially in healthcare. On the other, you have to design systems that anticipate where those frameworks are going, not just where they are today.

At BioAstra, we spend a lot of time thinking about interoperability, data governance, and ethical oversight as core infrastructure, not as compliance checkboxes. That becomes especially important as we move into areas like multi-omics data, AI-driven decision support, and cross-border research. Europe has a meaningful role to play here. Countries like Italy have a unique combination of aerospace expertise, biomedical research, and a regulatory culture that tends to prioritize patient protection and data integrity. That balance is important.

I think we’re going to see global standards emerge from collaboration rather than dominance. The U.S. brings speed and commercialization. Europe brings rigor and systems thinking. Space medicine will require both.

BioAstra’s Twin Astra program uses twin studies in space to unlock breakthroughs in aging, cancer, and regenerative medicine — research that could reshape healthcare for generations. When you imagine the medical infrastructure for long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars, what does it look like, and what needs to happen in the next five years — in terms of investment, policy, and talent — for that vision to become reality?
The Twin Astra program is really about understanding how the human body adapts, or fails to adapt, in environments that push it beyond anything we experience on Earth. When I think about medical infrastructure for long-duration missions, I don’t picture a traditional clinic scaled down. I picture something much more integrated. A closed-loop system.

Continuous monitoring across multiple biological layers. Embedded diagnostics that can operate in real time. Decision engines that can guide interventions when communication delays make Earth-based support impractical. And therapeutic capabilities that are modular, adaptable, and resource-aware. It’s not just about treating illness. It’s about maintaining system stability over time. In the next five years, a few things need to happen.

What changes?
First, investment has to shift from one-off experiments to integrated systems. We’ve proven we can collect data in space. Now we need to connect those data streams into actionable medical frameworks.
Second, policy needs to evolve, particularly around data access and governance. In space health, we tend to overcorrect. The sensitivity of astronaut data is real, but the fear of privacy breach can outweigh the value of discovery. That imbalance slows progress.
There’s a lot we can learn from rare and orphan disease communities. These are some of the most protected patient populations, and yet they’ve built research ecosystems that are highly collaborative, deeply molecular, and willing to engage in exploratory science because the stakes are clear. Space medicine will require a similar mindset.

And third, talent. We need people who are comfortable operating across disciplines. Not just clinicians or engineers, but individuals who can think in terms of systems, constraints, and tradeoffs. Space medicine doesn’t sit neatly in one field. If we get those pieces right, the impact won’t be limited to space. It will redefine how we deliver care in any environment where infrastructure is limited or needs to be reimagined.

Paola Del Zotto Ferrari – Resident Director Phoenix Spark