THE University of San Carlos in Cebu City was selected as the recipient of the HyperGES Programme by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.

The program is a capacity-building fellowship related to space education and research. USC will be joined by its SVD sister school Holy Name University.

The joint team is composed of USC physics professor Dr. Rommel Bacabac, a full professor at Dr. Hyacinth Suarez of HNU, Mary Diane Pilapil of USC, and Mark Adones Lingaro of USC.

Fr. President Francisco Antonio Estepa said the opportunity will inspire future scientists and researchers.

“We are delighted that UNOOSA and ESA are supporting our experiment HG-CELLS for testing the adaptation of bone cells to hypergravity, attached to 3D-printed scaffolds. This experiment will use locally produced biomaterials and will inspire future generations of young scientists in our community,” he said.

As the team leader, Dr. Bacabac expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to perform their HG-CELLS.

“The design of our intended experiment is based on the collaborative effort of our institutions, which highlights a direction for developing functional materials from our marine resources while using appropriately chosen technologies that are inherently inter-disciplinary. This impacts the way we will do research from now on,” Babac said.

“We hope to inspire many young minds in our community, recruit more students to continue being curious, and find more industry partners to continue developing relevant technologies using our very own rich resources,” he added.

The USC team will conduct hypergravity experiments at the Large Diameter Centrifuge facility at the European Space Research and Technology Centre of the European Space Agency located in The Netherlands.