the Israeli Space Agency are leading the
mission to the ISS.

“Now we can be part of this his-
tory unfolding in front of our eyes,”
Grunwald said. “You participate in a
scientific endeavor that might affect
future astronauts and the quality of life
on earth.”
The launch started coming together
in 2017 when TJU sponsored a
Philadelphia Orchestra tour in Israel,
according to Dr. Mark Tykocinski, the
executive vice president of academic
affairs at TJU.

The university used that tour to
launch its Jefferson Israel Center, which
established relationships with academic
medical centers in the Jewish state,
including the Sheba Medical Center, a
collaborator with TJU on the exper-
iments submitted to the ISS mission.

immune dysfunction.

After returning from space, astro-
nauts are often prone to viral infec-
tions, rashes and a “whole host of other
things,” Dicker said. They often come
back shorter and weaker, too.

“The immune system is an important
topic for those of us in oncology,” he
added. In examining the issue before the
launch, the doctors learned that there
was little known about it. So to study
it, they took pre-samples from astro-
nauts and will take post-samples from
them, too.

“We’ll see where we are and go from
there,” Dicker said.

Dicker believes it’s important to ask
the question because commercial space
travel is a growing industry.

“There are things that space travel
“Now we can be part of this history
unfolding in front of our eyes. You
participate in a scientific endeavor
that might affect future astronauts
and the quality of life on earth.”
DR. ZVI GRUNWALD
Out of that relationship, according
to Tykocinski, came the connection
to the Israeli Space Agency and the
opportunity to contribute studies to
this Israel-organized space trip. It’s
the first private mission to the ISS,
Tykocinski said.

“We’ve been taking Jefferson global,”
he added of the expansion to Israel.

“Now we’re going beyond the globe.”
The launch gave the TJU doctors the
rare opportunity to develop experi-
ments for a journey to space.

When building an experiment,
Dicker, the chair of radiation and
oncology at TJU, said, “You first have
to find an unmet need.”
In partnership with Dr. Yaacov
Lawrence of the Sheba Medical Center,
who came up with the idea, Dicker
developed a way to study the question
of why traveling to space can lead to
does that aren’t positive,” he said.

“There are a lot of things related to
human disease and aging that we’ll
learn.” Grunwald thinks the other exper-
iments from Jefferson are important
as well.

“We know very little about the
microbiome of the urine” as it relates
to space travel, the doctor said. And
traveling beyond the Earth is a stressful
experience, Grunwald explained. It can
impact vital signs, sleep physiology and
cognitive psychology.

“We have to plan how to mitigate
and improve the experience to prevent
adverse emotional events during space
travel,” the doctor added.

This is essential to a successful space
mission, according to Grunwald.

He compared astronauts to Olympic
athletes, whose emotions are often as
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