The Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) signed a partnership agreement with the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" in Bucharest (UMFCD) in order to initiate, develop and support the field of Space Medicine. The main component of the agreement is building an educational, research and innovation framework in order to align with the national and European strategy on Space Medicine.

This collaboration involves the cooperation of the two institutions for developing activities and projects carried out within UMFCD and ROSA, as well as their mutual promotion by both institutions on their dedicated web platforms. The two institutions will work together to identify suitable projects to be commonly implemented and will jointly pursue research studies in the space medicine domain.

Each institution will send information about the projects carried out within it, and then the legal framework for collaboration will be established, adapted to the specifics of each project. Therefore, for each activity / project, the objectives, the directions of action, the persons involved, the people in charge of activities, etc. will be separately discussed.

Space Medicine is an important, currently playing an essential role in monitoring the health of astronauts during their missions on the International Space Station.

A first step of the partnership is a thematic course of Space Physiology, the first ever in Romania, organised by the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila", in collaboration with the Society of Medical Students in Bucharest. UMFCD students are invited to discover the unknown and explore how the human body can adapt to Space conditions, to find out when space tourism will become an everyday reality and when humanity will take its first steps on Mars.

The students will be guided by Prof. Thais Russomano, MD, MSc, PhD, a specialist with over 30 years of experience in the fields of Space Life Sciences, Aerospace Medicine and Telemedicine, and Biomedical Engineering. Courses are held in English and are open only to UMFCD students. Registration details are available at this link.

In addition, we should mention that a team of students from the Space Medicine Hub recently qualified for the global phase of the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2021 hackathon.

Image credit: ROSA