Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor is a Malaysian medical doctor, born in Kuala Lumpur on 27 July 1972, who became the first Malaysian to travel into space. He earned a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery at Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, India, and then worked in Malaysian public hospitals, including Hospital Seremban, Kuala Lumpur General Hospital and Hospital Selayang. His source describes him as an orthopaedic medical officer who never completed a specialisation. Selected for the national Angkasawan spaceflight program in 2006, he trained in Russia and flew to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-11 in October 2007. During about ten days aboard he carried out experiments on liver cancer and leukaemia cells and on the crystallisation of proteins and microbes, and his flight prompted a national guidebook on practising Islamic rites in orbit.