Aenor Sawyer, MD

Executive Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Aenor Sawyer

Overview

Dr. Aenor Sawyer, has more than two decades of experience in development and evaluation of health technologies, telemedicine and remote medical management. In addition to her Clinical work in Orthopaedics as the Director of the Skeletal Health Service, Dr Sawyer was recently recruited into UCSF innovation Ventures to serve as Director of Innovator Enrichment and also Manager in Strategic Alliances. Dr. Sawyer’s experience in remote medical management includes 15 years as an Expedition Medic and Medical Advisor for extreme ocean rowers. She also conducts research with the Australian Antarctic Division on remote medical monitoring. She has expertise in remote care and Space Health/Medical management as the Director of the UC Space Health Program and previously served as the Chief Health Innovation Officer for the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, a NASA-funded program.

She is a member of the UCSF IT Governance Committee, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCSF Center for Advanced 3D+ Technologies, Co-Founder of the Center for Digital Health Innovation, and a UCSF HEALTH HUB board member. External roles also include Chair of MCRI HealthTechnology Advisory Board, Advisor to UCSF Invest Fund, Advisor to ANDHealth, External Advisory Board Member of the Scripps Translational Sciences Institute, and prior Associate Editor of Nature’s Digital Medicine Journal.

As a UCSF Orthopedist, she is Founder and Director of the Skeletal Health Service where she combines her background as an Orthopedic Surgeon, Physical Therapist and Exercise Physiologist enabling pediatric to geriatric patients optimize their bone health across the lifespan. Dr Sawyer's career includes 10 years as a Physical Therapist, after which she received an M.S. in Human Physiology and her M.D. from the University of California, Davis. Upon completion of her Orthopedic Surgery residency at Stanford University, she completed fellowship training in Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery and Pediatric/Adolescent Sports Medicine, both at Boston Children's Hospital, in the Harvard Orthopedic program

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Education and Training

  • M.D. — 1993 — School of Medicine — University of California Davis

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Awards and Honors

  • Dame Elizabeth Murdoch Fellow Award, Murdoch Children's Research Institute Royal Children's Hospital, University of Melbourne
    2016
  • David Danks Lecturer, Murdoch Children's Research Institute Royal Children's Hospital, University of Melbourne
    2016
  • Selected of Top 4 Techy Doctors and Top 50 Digital Health Innovators in 2015, Rock Health, Fenwick and West, and Goldman Sachs
    2015
  • Community Service, Hall of Fame, Tri-Valley Sports Hall of Fame
    2005
  • Lovett Fellowship in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital
    1999
  • Lange Medical Publications Award, Stanford University
    1993
  • President, Honor Medical Society, Alpha Omega Alpha
    1992
  • US Olympic Sports Medicine Volt Staff, 1984 US Olympic Games
    1984

Research Activities and Funding

  • Feasibility Study of US to Assess Bone Density in Spine Clinic Setting

    Sponsor: UCSF - CDMI

    Role: PI

    Start date: 2022-01-20

  • UCSF/TRISH Space Health Innovation Program

    Sponsor: NASA

    Role: PI

    Award ID: P0532788

    Start date: 2018-10-01

    End date: 2021-09-30

  • Center for Advanced 3D+ Technologies - "Personalized Precision Surgery and Intervention"

    Sponsor: UCSF

    Role: PI

    Start date: 2018-08-01

    End date: 2019-08-01

Publications

Non invasive monitoring for spaceflight associated neuro ocular syndrome: responding to a need for In flight methodologies

Meer EA, Church L, Johnson BA, Rhode J, Sawyer AJ, Sinclair, AJ, Mollan SP, Peterson L, Polk JD

npj Microgravity, 2025

Chapter 8 Artificial intelligence in precision space health.

Erik Antonsen, Barbara K. Burian, Sylvain V. Costes, Robert J. Reynolds, Lauren M. Sanders, Aenor Sawyer, Lauren A. Schrader, Ryan T. Scott, Michael Snyder, Corey A. Theriot

The Digital Doctor, 2025

The Health Hazards of Space Travel: Novel Insights From Quantum Biology

Nunn, A., Adams, B., Guy, G., Albensi, B. C., Almeida, R., Almeida-Porada, G. D., Babcock, N., Beane, W., Beheshti, A., Bell, J., Botchway, S., Brash, D., Cifra, M., Clark, K. B., Craddock, T., D’Urbano, J., Fosbury, R., Frasch, W., Furman, D., Levin, M., Lewis, N. G., Mason, C. E., Mieczkowski, J., Muratani, M., Porada, C., Roy, U., Sawyer, A., Thorne, S., Wallace, D., Woodward, J., & Zupanska, A.

The Guy Foundation Family Trust., 2024

Biomonitoring and precision health in deep space supported by artificial intelligence.

Ryan T. Scott, Lauren M. Sanders, Erik L. Antonsen, Jaden J. A. Hastings, Seung-min Park, Graham Mackintosh, Robert J. Reynolds, Adrienne L. Hoarfrost, Aenor Sawyer, Casey S. Greene, Benjamin S. Glicksberg, Corey A. Theriot, Daniel C. Berrios, Jack Miller, Joel Babdor, Richard Barker, Sergio E. Baranzini, Afshin Beheshti, Stuart Chalk, Guillermo M. Delgado-Aparicio, Melissa Haendel, Arif A. Hamid, Philip Heller, Daniel Jamieson, Katelyn J. Jarvis, John Kalantari, Kia Khezeli, Svetlana V. Komarova, Matthieu Komorowski, Prachi Kothiyal, Ashish Mahabal, Uri Manor, Hector Garcia Martin, Christopher E. Mason, Mona Matar, George I. Mias, Jerry G. Myers, Charlotte Nelson, Jonathan Oribello, Patricia Parsons-Wingerter, R. K. Prabhu, Amina Ann Qutub, Jon Rask, Amanda Saravia-Butler, Suchi Saria, Nitin Kumar Singh, Michael Snyder, Frank Soboczenski, Karthik Soman, David Van Valen, Kasthuri Venkateswaran, Liz Warren, Liz Worthey, Jason H. Yang, Marinka Zitnik, Sylvain V. Costes

Nature Machine Intelligence, 2023

Biological research and self-driving labs in deep space supported by artificial intelligence.

Lauren M. Sanders, Ryan T. Scott, Jason H. Yang, Amina Ann Qutub, Hector Garcia Martin, Daniel C. Berrios, Jaden J. A. Hastings, Jon Rask, Graham Mackintosh, Adrienne L. Hoarfrost, Stuart Chalk, John Kalantari, Kia Khezeli, Erik L. Antonsen, Joel Babdor, Richard Barker, Sergio E. Baranzini, Afshin Beheshti, Guillermo M. Delgado-Aparicio, Benjamin S. Glicksberg, Casey S. Greene, Melissa Haendel, Arif A. Hamid, Philip Heller, Daniel Jamieson, Katelyn J. Jarvis, Svetlana V. Komarova, Matthieu Komorowski, Prachi Kothiyal, Ashish Mahabal, Uri Manor, Christopher E. Mason, Mona Matar, George I. Mias, Jack Miller, Jerry G. Myers, Charlotte Nelson, Jonathan Oribello, Seung-min Park, Patricia Parsons-Wingerter, R. K. Prabhu, Robert J. Reynolds, Amanda Saravia-Butler, Suchi Saria, Aenor Sawyer, Nitin Kumar Singh, Michael Snyder, Frank Soboczenski, Karthik Soman, Corey A. Theriot, David Van Valen, Kasthuri Venkateswaran, Liz Warren, Liz Worthey, Marinka Zitnik, Sylvain V. Costes

Nature Machine Intelligence, 2023

Developing an international database on long-term health effects of spaceflight.

Susan A. Bloomfield, Bonnie J. Dunbar, Cason D. Schmit, Aenor J. Sawyer, J.B. Charles

Acta Astronautica, 2022

52 Osteoporosis, Osteomalacia, and Metabolic Bone Disease.

Kelly Wentworth, Augusto Hsia, Roger Long, Sigurd H. Berven, Daniel J. Mazanec, Aenor Sawyer

Benzels Spine Surgery, 2022

Deep Space Applications for Point-of-Care Technologies.

Gary E. Strangman, Aenor Sawyer, Kristin M. Fabre, Emmanuel Urquieta, James Hury, Jimmy Wu, Andrew Peterman, Jeff Hoffman, Dorit Donoviel

Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering, 2019

Calcium supplementation during pregnancy improves tibial bone density at one year post-partum in racially diverse women (250.3).

Andrea Hacker, Janet King, Marta Van Loan, Erik Gertz, Mickye Adams, Aenor Sawyer, Ellen Fung

The FASEB Journal, 2014

Exploring Vertebral Height Deficits in Patients with Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Disease,.

Ellen B Fung, Kathryn N Reget, Drucilla Haines, Aenor Sawyer, Ashutosh Lal

Blood, 2011

Characterization of bone deficits in young patients with thalassemia.

E.B. Fung, J. Kwiatkowski, J. Huang, A. Sawyer, B.S. Zemel, E. Vichinsky

Bone, 2009