In 2017, the Sovaris team was asked to develop two textbook chapters on men and women in spaceflight. While the Sovaris team focused on the unique needs of men and women in spaceflight, we recognized that the relatively smaller number of women in space made direct statistical comparisons of men and women in space more difficult. Our team initially summarized a representative sample of the published literature to date on sex differences in human spaceflight. We then built the case that personalized medicine approaches, regardless of sex, can rest upon the foundation of current research, while actively addressing individual differences in astronauts with precision. Thus, the Sovaris team created the chapter “Personalized Medicine in Space Flight, Part II: Personalized Precision Medicine Approaches.” This was accompanied by a companion chapter entitled “Personalized Medicine in Space Flight, Part I: Standard Clinical Approaches.” The two chapters were published in The Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine: Gender in the Genomic Era, Third Edition. Ed. Legato, MJ. London: Academic Press (Elsevier) 2017.
In September 2018, it was announced that the textbook, edited by Marianne J. Legato, MD, Ph.D., received the PROSE Award for Excellence in Clinical Medicine 2018. The PROSE awards annually recognize the very best in professional and scholarly publishing by bringing attention to distinguished books, journals, and electronic content in 58 categories. Judged by peer publishers, librarians, and medical professionals since 1976, the PROSE Awards are considered extraordinary for their breadth and depth.