Salvador Macip, new dean of the UOC Faculty of Health Sciences

Professor Salvador Macip, who is also a doctor, researcher and writer, is starting as dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) this January. He is currently a full professor at the UOC as well as an associate professor at the University of Leicester in the UK, where he also heads a research laboratory focusing on cancer and ageing. Macip will take over as dean from Ramon Gomis, who has headed the faculty since January 2018.

The new dean has a medical degree (1994) and a PhD in Molecular Genetics and Human Physiology (1998) from the University of Barcelona. From 1998 to 2008 he worked at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, carrying out research into the molecular bases of cancer and ageing. In 2008 his academic career took him to the University of Leicester, where he now heads the Mechanisms of Cancer and Ageing Laboratory. He joined the UOC in 2020 as a member of the Faculty of Health Sciences and, two years later, the university made him a full professor.

He is a regular contributor to the newspapers Ara and El Periódico and to the SER radio programme El Balcó, and he is the author of some 40 books, including novels, children's literature and short stories. These include works like Les grans epidèmies modernes (La Campana, 2010), Jugar a ser déus (Bromera, 2014), Enemigos microscópicos (Materia, 2016), ¿Es posible frenar el envejecimiento? (Materia, 2016), Ramón y Cajal: Ara i aquí (Angle, 2016), 100 preguntes sobre el càncer (Cossetània, 2018) and Què ens fa humans? (Arcàdia, 2022). His books have been honoured with a number of awards and have been translated into ten languages.

For Macip, this appointment at the UOC represents "an honour and a responsibility” that he will take on with great enthusiasm. "Dr Ramon Gomis has done an excellent job, giving the faculty great energy, and I am stepping into his shoes with the goal of maintaining this upward trajectory and working to scale the greatest heights possible," he said.

Research into senescence to fight cancer and ageing

Macip researches the molecular processes causing cancer and ageing to help find new treatments that could have clinical uses in the near future. Such processes include senescence, a key response by living organisms to control cell balance. It is a mechanism enabling the division of damaged cells to be interrupted, eliminating them and preventing their propagation. Although this biological process helps fight cancer, it also contributes to ageing. Macip's research involves ascertaining whether it is possible to augment our defences against cancer without increasing ageing.

In this regard, within the framework of the FoodLab group, Macip has for some years now been heading research that has allowed for the design of antibodies to destroy old cells and slow ageing down, and he is currently involved in a study analysing whether intermittent fasting slows the ageing process down in postmenopausal women.

The UOC's Faculty of Health Sciences

The UOC'S Faculty of Health Sciences, founded in October 2010, encompasses eight fields of knowledge: Food, Nutrition and Physical Activity; Cancer and Ageing; Speech and Language Therapy; Neuropsychology and Neurosciences; Clinical Programmes; e-Health; Planetary Health; and Medical Social Work and Health Administration. In 2021, more than 3,000 students were enrolled on education programmes in these fields.

Its research and innovation activity is conducted in an interdisciplinary and responsible manner, with the mission of achieving social impact in the field of health and human well-being from a biopsychosocial standpoint. This activity is aimed at promoting health, preventing illness and enhancing quality of life, principally by means of digital and technological interventions, and is targeted at health professionals, patients and the general public.

According to Macip, the faculty carries out innovative research with an immediate impact on people's health, and offers a unique teaching portfolio that fits the latest requirements in the field of health. "We will continue to work in these fields to increase our impact and make ourselves a leading faculty," he said.