Prof. Gerda Horneck of German Aerospace Center in Köln,  Germany visited the Institute of Modern Physics, CAS (IMP), from May 15 to 18, accompanied by her husband Prof. Folk Horneck,  and Prof. ZHUANG Fengyuan of Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, BUAA).　

Prof. Horneck visits laboratory of heavy-ion cancer therapy

Prof. Horneck is a famous expert in the field of space biology. She performed biological experiments on Apollo 16, Apollo 17, Apollo-Soyuz test project, flights of the Russian FOTON satellite in 1994, 1997, and 1999, etc. Both Prof. Horneck and Prof. ZHUANG are members of International Academy of Astronautics.

Prof. Herneck and Prof. ZHUANG presented lectures on space biology. They showed great interests in IMP’s facilities of CSR (Cooler Storage Ring), Heavy-ion Cancer therapy, and Microbeam Irradiation. The visitors discussed with researchers at IMP about the collaboration on China-Germany space biology  symposium preparation and the space biological experiment cooperation between the two institutions. Prof. Horneck also exchanged ideas about related research and subjects of mutual interest with Prof. XIAO Guoqing, the director of IMP. 

Prof. Horneck and Prof. ZHUANG discuss with IMP researchers at the Microbeam Irradiation Terminal

Space biology is a newly-developed interdisciplinary research field, which contains numerous new scientific problems to be discovered and further studied.  However, it’s full of different challenges and needs international collaboration. Space biology research at IMP is just at the start point and needs further development. This visit helped researchers at IMP understand critical problems in this field. Both sides agreed that it’s the best time for preparation of the China-Germany space biology symposium and for further cooperation between the two institutions.