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Millie Hughes-Fulford is a molecular biologist at the University of California (San Francisco) that tries to decipher the reasons why 15 of the 29 astronauts who participated in the Apollo missions (in the 60 and 70), returned with infections that were created in their missions or immediately after it returned to Earth.
As part of the experiments carried out are awaiting the landing of space shuttle Discovery, specifically of the 16 mice that spent two weeks in space and form part of an experiment designed by Hughes-Fulford in order to study how immune cells are developed during a space mission. Together with this group of mice traveled millions of stem cells from mouse, as part of an experiment led by Eduardo Almeida investigator of NASA's Ames Center and seeking clues about diseases that are contracted by the astronauts on their journeys Space: A compromised immune system and weakening of bones and muscles.
The idea of both studies is to help human beings who survive to the extensive space travel required to get to Mars or other destinations in our solar system, but that in turn could be useful to solve health problems Earth.
Research into the diseases associated with longer stays in space have for years, so the conclusion has already been achieved that are similar to musculoskeletal disease patients suffering from some form of paralysis or who are in state eat on Earth. In fact Hughes-Fulford points out that the weakening of the immune system suffered by astronauts is similar to what occurs with aging. An example of this is the fact that it is common for young astronauts return to Earth with Shingles, a disease that is strongly associated with people over 60 years.
Scientists simulate the same conditions of the samples sent into space (except the lack of gravity) on Earth, so as to compare the behavior of cells and the immune system when they are not subject to gravity.
The study of how stem cells turn into different tissues is directly related to the health of astronauts. A failure of these stem cells to differentiate into normal tissues may cause serious problems. For example if during a Mars mission one of the astronauts become pregnant, it is likely that the baby does not develop normally.
Hughes-Fulford has spent many years researching this subject (in fact in 1991 he traveled on the space shuttle as part of a scientific mission), thus find that T cells, a type of white blood cells could not act properly in spaceflight. In its investigation failed to find that these cells depend on the severity, so looking forward to analyze the 16 mice that traveled on the ferry, and thanks to these may know exactly when changes occur in these cells and identify those genes that failed to activate.
Link: Research hopes to shed light on link between space travel, sickness
